Domestic disputes are governed by feelings, and Damian was very good at managing feelings; he had managed mine for years.

But the moment I stopped treating this as a matter of the heart and started treating it as a matter of the ledger, he lost every advantage he had.

You cannot charm a subpoena.

You cannot gaslight a bank statement.

A promissory note does not care how you feel about Valentina.

By moving the whole thing out of the territory of emotion — where Damian was the expert and I was the wreck — and into the territory of documents, where the facts sat still and let themselves be counted, I had changed the game to one he did not know how to play and I, it turned out, was very good at.