My husband be@t me for refusing to live with my mother-in-law. Then he calmly went to bed. The next morning, he handed me a luxury makeup kit and said, “My mother’s coming for lunch. Cover that up and smile.”

And Margit arranged, with the local police, that two officers would come to the house at twenty past one to serve the order.

And I went back downstairs. And made coffee. And asked Dorian if he wanted eggs.

And the four hours between the order being signed and the doorbell, which I spent being his wife.

That is the part I did not know I could do.

I made him eggs. He read the paper and told me about somebody at the club who had bought a boat. I laughed at the right place.

At about eleven he went for a run, and I stood at the kitchen window and watched him go down the drive, and I thought: I could lock the door now.

And I did not. Because Margit had said the thing that mattered was that it was done properly, by people with the authority to make it stick, and not by me alone in a house with a deadbolt.

So I let him back in at twenty to twelve, sweaty and pleased with himself, and he kissed me on the good side of my face and went up to shower.

And at twelve, while the water was running, I set the table.