The theft was the operation.

And I understood, looking at her unhurried figure in that hallway, that I had spent the night grieving the wrong thing.

I had wept for a friend who was overcome by feelings for my husband.

There was no such friend.

There was a woman who had studied me for twelve years and decided, at some point, that everything I had — my husband, my savings, my grandmother’s things, the very folders that documented what was mine — was simply available for the taking, and that our friendship was the perfect instrument for taking it, because who suspects the person they trust most?

The affair had broken my heart.