Shut your mouth.” And that — the sudden coldness, the ugliness under the polish — did what none of my evidence could have done.

She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.

“No,” she said.

“You shut up.

You told me the down payment last month was for our future.”

I had lived with that face under the charm for twelve years, and I had almost forgotten it existed, because he showed it so rarely and hid it so well.