I take a deep breath in and tell myself I have no choice but to do what I’m about to do. Even though just a few nights ago the thought of looking through his things felt so wrong, tonight feels different. But a part of me wishes he’d tell me, too. Wishes he’d just be honest with me.

I pull open the top drawer at the center of the desk, but this one has some pens in it and a few sheets of heavy paper embossed with his crest at the top center with envelopes to match. I close it and try the next one. It slides out easily, but it, too, like the first one, is neat and almost empty. Not even a paperclip out of place. I lean down to peer at the far back, but there’s nothing there.

The third drawer is locked as are all three on the other side. If there’s anything here, I won’t find it unless I break into them.

Standing, I go to the antique armoire against the far wall and open it. I don’t expect to find files, and I don’t. Instead, I see two unopened bottles of the scotch he likes to drink, some crystal tumblers, and, on the shelf beside those, a glass box that looks a lot like the one he keeps that mask in in my room. The one he hasn’t made me wear since the night I passed out.

My heart races, and my brain tries to tell me that what I’m seeing can’t be. Because it would be too humiliating. Too horrible.

I open the lid. It’s not locked. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear I smell the coppery scent of blood as I take out the neatly folded, unwashed sheets. The bloody sheets from our wedding night.

I try to make sense of this. Why would he have this? Why would he keep it? But then I remember. After he’d taken me and I’d had that awful mask on my head, I remember what he’d muttered that my mind hadn’t quite processed, not then.

“I wonder if Eli will be pleased to see how I bled his daughter.”

Is he planning on giving this to my father if or when he wakes? Still? After everything?

I drop the sheet and push my hands into my hair. God. I am a fool! I wonder if he’s laughing at me now wherever he is. This fool that is his wife.

“Fuck you, Santiago!” I pull the sheet out of the glass box so violently that the box drops to the floor when a corner of the cloth catches. I’m glad for the carpet, or it would have shattered, I’m sure, but as I bend to pull the sheet free, I see a single long crack across the bottom of the box.