The SUV was mine — my father gave it to me before the wedding, in my name, and Gabriel had simply started driving it because it made him look successful. The apartment was mine too, though Gabriel didn't fully understand the arrangement. My father, who had watched Gabriel for years with the flat assessing gaze of a man who's commanded troops, had made sure of that. "Make sure you learn who he is before you tell him who you are," he'd said. I'd learned. Gabriel was a man who would hand a woman twelve dollars and a bus ride five days after surgery and drive off in her car to impress his mother.
I didn't need my father's stars to leave him. I needed them to make sure that when I left, I left with everything that was already mine, and Gabriel left with exactly what he'd brought to the marriage, which was nothing.
