I MARRIED A PRISONER FOR MONEY WHILE HE WAS SERVING A TWELVE-YEAR SENTENCE — BUT AFTER HIS CONVICTION WAS OVERTURNED, HE CAME TO MY APARTMENT WITH A BLACK BOX AND SAID, “NOW IT’S MY TURN TO BE HONEST.”

Then he reached for my hand instead, steady and certain.

“Come home with me,” he said.

For one full week afterward, I believed we’d survived the worst of it together, that whatever came next would simply be the easier, gentler chapter neither of us had gotten to have yet.

Then, on the eighth night, Silas set a small black box down on our kitchen table, the surface scuffed enough that it clearly wasn’t new.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Now it’s my turn to be honest,” he said.