I would hold his hand, feeling for a pulse jump when he lied. Or I’d make him swear on his daughters’ lives after every sentence that each word had been gospel. Robert’s life, actually hanging in the balance, was too frail a thing to swear on. I’d watch for his lawyer tells, the confidential lean-in or the skeptical cocked eyebrow that I’d seen him practice for his closing arguments. On some cop show, the main detective said that people look up toward the right when they lied, trying to access the creative side of the brain. People telling the truth looked up and left, toward where their memories were stored. I’d planned to watch his eyes when I finally asked. I would convict him with his own glances.

But as he spoke, he barely looked up at all. We sat down together, and he told the story to his hands, clasped tightly in his lap, and I understood how foolish those ideas had been.

As if truth ever gave itself away so cheaply.

Back in high school, I’d played Blanche DuBois in a version of Streetcar Named Desire that was edited for teens. Our Stanley genuinely had no idea why he was yelling “Stelllllaaaaa!” in the road. He shook his fist and screamed the name because the script said it was time. But I’d read the unredacted play. I knew what happened in the lines and moments we were deemed too young to say or even know. As Blanche I lied like it was breathing, a necessary thing she didn’t even notice she was doing. In that show I’d been Bree, pretending to be Blanche, who was pretending to be truthful, even to herself.

So I knew that people could tell lies in layers, and yet as Trey spoke, I thought that he was being genuine. Only a monster, a sociopath, could rack himself with such deep-set shame over a lie. And I had not married a monster.

When he did meet my gaze, I let my face show all my love and faith. I wanted him to understand that he was safe. I might not like his story, but I had accepted that no matter what Trey had done and no matter the mistakes I’d made, Robert’s absence, the danger he was in, was on the mother’s tab. Not ours. Now I simply wanted the truth.

“Do you remember 1992?” he asked. I nodded, but I shrugged at the same time. I’d been nine or so. “The Internet had just opened to the public. It didn’t have pictures yet, much less video. There were very few women online, or frat boys either. I think it was just scientists and nerds. I knew people who had cell phones, but they were still these chunky blocks. Nothing with a screen or Internet.”