My stomach lurches like I’m on the teacup ride, and I have to sit down, propping this Frye box on my knees, untying the string, releasing all of those birthday wishes and a few auld lang synes. She saved them and hid them away, stacked atop a Moleskine notebook that already makes me want to vomit. I slide the elastic strap from its cover and open to a random page:

It is August, but

I have winterized our nest

for two larks, one Finch.

A haiku. Good Lord. That’s so Stuart.

I turn the page to a handwritten sonnet. Another page, another sonnet. Shameless, this guy. Is he for real? Flipping from one dumb handwritten poem to the next, I’m starting to wonder if they’re all odes to Elizabeth, every last one of them, when a pressed flower falls on the floor. Is a thistle even a flower?

I know better than to do this to myself—than to degrade Lizzie like this—but I’m already in too deep, so I find another sonnet and read—

North of Blue Eye, due south of Marvel Cave,

You came to be, a being forced to leave

—but, Jesus Christ, this fucking guy. Of course he would—of course he’d call it her “marvel cave.” I shove the thistle back in the book and snap it shut, nauseated by the image of a vegan dweeb spelunking in my wife, disgusted with her for ever having found this shit appealing, furious with myself for knowing things I can’t unknow. How bad Elizabeth’s taste used to be. The extent of the secrets she still keeps.

I wrap everything in the ratty T-shirt and stuff the bundle back under her boots. What would she have done if I hadn’t come along? Who the hell would she have become? I’d been so ready to write Raymond off when he made that crack about Elizabeth’s past—about what she’s capable of, her history of deception, but now—well, now this. Now I have to face reality. This is who I married. This is what she’s capable of.

I return to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face, and soak my collar, but it doesn’t matter. I should’ve changed into casual clothes by now, anyway. I turn off the tap and dry my neck, face, and hands, watching my reflection unbutton my shirt, watching my hands and head lose their grip. I stare into my own eyes and lift one arm, raise it overhead, poised to slap my face with my own open hand, but something stops me. My heartbeat pounds, dull but deafening: the rhythm of pulsatile tinnitus like a marching band in the distance, marching closer, closer still. Signs of trauma. Signs of shock. My gaze falls on a fixed point in the mirror.