She said she had not known it was a requirement, and that she has since learned that this is unbelievably common.

She remembers being told at the counter.

She remembers the specific feeling of it — the moment where a day that you have been holding together with both hands develops a fault, and you are standing in a public building at twenty-six with your husband, and somebody is explaining a rule to you.

And she said: “And then a man came out from the back.”

She remembered his shirtsleeves.