Even here, on the sidewalk, ruined, he was pleading his mother’s homelessness and his own, the loss of the house and the cars, the catalogue of what had been taken from him.

Not one word about what he had taken from me.

The test went on running even after the marriage ended, and he went on failing it, right to the last line.

That, at least, was clean.

I would not have to wonder.

“I told you yesterday, Corvin,” I said, without any heat in it at all.