“Luke Draper?” Luke’s head turned wildly around the yard — at his neighbors, frozen and staring; at Camellia, already edging backward toward the gate, already calculating how far she could get from him; and finally at Daniel and me, standing together, watching.

There was nowhere for his eyes to land that offered him anything.

“You have the right to remain silent,” the agent said, and stepped behind him, and drew his arms back, and the handcuffs closed with a bright, final, metallic sound that carried across the whole silent party.

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” My ex-husband, who had walked onto this patio twenty minutes earlier to laugh at me in front of everyone we knew, was led away weeping through the side gate, past the pool, past the abandoned drinks, past the neighbors who would be telling this story for the rest of their lives.

And I stood and watched him go, and I waited to feel triumphant, and what I felt instead was something quieter and much larger, which I would spend the next weeks learning the name of.