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.”

He did not go out. I would have heard the car. I was awake all night.

So it was already in the house.

The receipt.

I took the box upstairs, into the bathroom, and locked the door, and took the ribbon off very carefully so I could put it back.

And tucked under the tray, folded small, was the receipt — the assistant at that counter folds them in, the way they do, and nobody ever looks.

From the department store in town. On a store account.

Georgiana’s store account. Her name printed at the top.

Dated Thursday, the fourteenth of August. Twelve minutes past four in the afternoon.

Two days before the dinner.

Two days before I was asked, over a crab starter, whether I would give up my bedroom and my kitchen and my accounts.

Two days before I said no.

She bought the kit on the Thursday.

Because she already knew what I would say on the Saturday. And she already knew what her son would do about it.

And she already knew what he would need on the Sunday morning.

I sat on the edge of the bath and looked at that receipt for a very long time.