I worked two jobs to help fulfill my husband’s dream of becoming a doctor — at his graduation, he handed me divorce papers, but just as I was walking away, one of his classmates said, “Before you leave, there’s something you should know.”

His footsteps in the hallway.

He stopped in the doorway of the study and looked at me.

Then he looked at the prepaid phone on the desk between us.

His face went very still.

He didn’t sit down.

He stood in the doorway with his jacket still on, his graduation gown gone now, and he looked at the prepaid phone on the desk the way a person looks at something they had been certain was hidden.

“Where did you find that?” he asked.

“Does it matter?”

“That’s my private property.”

“So is the joint account you emptied to buy an apartment with her.” I kept my voice even.

“Sit down.”

He came into the room but didn’t sit.

He stood on the far side of the desk, which put the prepaid phone between us like an exhibit.

“I came back to get some things,” he said.

“I wasn’t expecting—”