She left on a Tuesday with one suitcase and the terrier, because the terrier was hers before him and had, in fairness, been walked by her every morning for six years. He sat on the steps with his ring on. He had prepared an argument about the $4,200, which was the part he could defend. She had not come to talk about the $4,200.

What she listed instead was her birthday dinner, where he'd kept the phone face-down and checked it eleven times; the drive to Cleveland he spent on the phone; the four months she had asked him questions and got answers to different questions. He said he could stop. She said she believed him, and left anyway, which was the first time anyone had done both.