Then the phone. He had always been a man who left his phone face-up on the table, unhidden, unconcerned. One Tuesday in March, I watched him turn it over without thinking, the way you close a door without deciding to. He didn’t look at me when he did it. That was the first real note, though I didn’t really pay attention to it then.
I didn’t snoop. I want to be clear about that—not because snooping would have been wrong, but because I am a person who deals in evidence, not suspicion. I filed the observation. I watched for corroboration. I had trained for exactly this kind of patience in boardrooms and depositions. I simply hadn’t expected to need it at home.