“Tell me about the letters,” I said.

She reached into her red leather bag – Coach, I couldn’t help but notice – pulled out a short stack of envelopes, handed it to me. The envelopes were plain, no return address, Julia’s name and address printed in a basic computer font. The postmark was from Center City Philadelphia. I opened one, took out the letter, unfolded it.

“They’ve been coming for the last couple months,” she said. “Every week or so. At first I thought they were nothing and threw them out, but then I got scared enough to keep them.”

“Did you show them to the police?”

“I’ve never shown them to anybody. There is nothing that could be done. And I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

“You mean you didn’t want to get me in trouble.”

“I didn’t know who was sending them, but it was someone who seemed to know me intimately enough to have a grudge, and you seemed like a logical choice.”

She was right about that.

The first one read “SLUT” in big, red, hand-scrawled letters. A designer shoe that fit quite neatly, I thought. I opened the next, and the next. “WHORE. WITCH’S CUNT. FAT SLOB. SLAGHEAP. BANGSTER. YOU GREEDY BITCH.”

I went through them all, noticed the way the S’s curved, the L’s looped, the way the E’s tilted to the right. I placed each carefully in its envelope, handed the stack back to her.

“I never thought you were fat,” I said.

“So you didn’t send them?”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, though maybe I should have thought of it.”

“You’re still upset.”

“I’m over it.”

“You don’t look over it. You look like you just ate an iguana.”

“We were engaged,” I said. “We were planning our future together. You left me for a urologist. A urologist.”

“It wasn’t a comment on your masculinity.”

“Thank you for that, Julia. The burden of Atlas has been lifted from my shoulders. Why, I might now even be able to get on my hands and knees and scrounge up a bit of my lost self-respect. Oh, look, under that couch over there, with the dust bunnies and the discarded sugar packets. Yes, it’s my self-respect. Glorious day. I now can go on.”