They had been married maybe six months when one of her credit cards was declined at a boutique on Rodeo. Isn’t that strange? Try this. She passed the clerk another. Back in the car she texted him about it. He was playing away, probably already at the stadium doing his pregame rituals—one of which was to avoid his phone at all costs—and by the time they connected there were other things to talk about, his stand-up double and something going strange with the house’s ancient plumbing. It’d happen every so often through the summer, a card getting declined, Liana blushing and apologetic and reaching for twenties. But by Labor Day all of the cards started falling like so many dominos. How her face burned behind her oversize sunglasses as she promised the sales clerk and the grocery checker and the waiter that she’d be back once she straightened things out with her husband, once she cleared things up with her bank, once she ran to the ATM. But when he came back through L.A. he was too focused on game prep to answer her texts or write back to the notes on the kitchen counter that she set out before heading to bed. Then he left again, for a long ten-game stretch on the East Coast. The Lions were probably not going to make the postseason, but there was a sliver of a chance that they’d get the wild card, and so she let him be. She took a few gowns to the consignment shop, sold some jewelry for cash. Five games into the road trip is when the orange notices started, mail with red stamps so bright they looked like they were bleeding. FINAL NOTICE.

She finally got a hold of their bank accounts—the bank didn’t make it easy, even with her being his wife. Everything was drained, and there was a new mortgage on the Arizona house, a line of credit against their California home. Whatever was going on, this wasn’t a hundred thousand in chips every week or two like in their early days. Those were lavish weekends, first-class tickets and posh hotels, seed money for them both—but well within their means. She never went to the casino without him, but clearly he was going without her. And clearly he was losing, more every day. When, in late October, she and Jason were finally in the same place at the same time and both awake, she asked her husband, point-blank, but he was dismissive. I’ll take care of it. Would he take care of it by winning big? And how much, exactly, had he lost? He shrugged and she packed up her things and told him to call her when he got his shit together. She drove to Arizona that same night, arriving in Scottsdale just as the sky started to pink.