perhaps the first time in our marriage, I stopped and asked what she wanted.
Claire agreed to leave the basement but refused to return to our Boston townhouse. I offered a smaller property I owned in Brookline, and she accepted only after setting rules that no staff would live inside, no cameras would watch her rooms, and no one would report her movements to me. Before I left that night, I held out the wedding ring I had picked up from the sidewalk. She stared at it for several seconds,
