He bowed his head, stared hard at his fingernails. There was a pale white ring where his wedding band used to be. The police must have removed it. She imagined him getting handed a small yellow envelope sometime in the future, when they were on the other side of this thing. The ring would be inside. He’d take it, turn it over in the palm of his hand, then slip it on.

Will it still fit? She wondered. And when will that be? Ten years, twenty, fifty?

‘You know what really pisses me off?’ Abby asked. ‘What really pisses me off is, I still love you. I still love the hell out of you, in fact.’

‘I love the hell out of you too,’ he said.

They looked at each other across the steel table. Abby felt a deep and helpless longing, down in her bones. She’d never felt anything like it.

‘Are they listening to us?’ she asked, checking the corners for security cameras or listening devices.

‘It doesn’t matter if they are,’ Ray said. ‘I told them everything. I told them the truth.’

‘You told them you killed that man,’ she whispered.

‘… Yes.’

Never had a single word hit her so hard. If she hadn’t been sitting down, she might have collapsed. She pictured an egg that could never be un-scrambled, a glass that could never be un-shattered.

‘You look like you were expecting another answer,’ Ray said. ‘But you knew, Ab. You knew the whole time. So why do you seem so surprised?’

‘Because I once saw you weep without shame during an airline ad. I’ve seen you add lavender oil to your bathwater. I’ve heard you laugh like a crazy person when you watch Funniest Home Videos. Because it’s you. Because even after everything, all I wanted was for you to tell me I was wrong. This whole time, that’s all I wanted.’

She closed her eyes. Hot, salty tears had come to them, pulled from some deep, black well. They fell down her cheeks in fat, unapologetic drops. ‘Why did you do it?’

Ray folded his hands on the table, looked Abby in the eyes and began to talk.

‘Let me start with those magazines you found,’ he said. He paused, as if he was expecting the right words to arrive when he needed them. Then, perhaps realising what Abby already knew – that there were no right words – he shook his head and pressed on. ‘I’ve always been attracted to women, so it’s not like I’m, you know…’

‘Gay.’

He nodded. ‘Those magazines were just something I was curious about. I suppose part of me has always … worried I was that way inclined. I mean … I’m sorry, this is so fucking hard.’

Abby thought about Bobbi’s rainbow flag analogy.