She slipped the ring into her pocket and walked out. I had noticed it missing two days earlier and assumed it was lost somewhere in the moving boxes. Ned downloaded both videos onto a flash drive and handed it to me. He told me he’d recorded the house for years after a break-in and simply forgot the camera when he moved. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you deserved to know.”

I didn’t go home. I drove straight to a lawyer my friend recommended, and she stayed past closing to watch the footage. A quitclaim signed under false pretenses could be challenged, she said, but it was far better never to sign it. She told me to act normal and bring the folder back unsigned. Then she called the police about the ring. By eight o’clock, I had a plan, and Colin had texted three times asking where the groceries were.

When I walked back into the house, Glenda handed me the folder and a pen with a sweet smile. I didn’t open it. Instead, I set my laptop on the kitchen island, the same island from the video, and pressed play. Colin’s face went white. Glenda reached for the laptop, and that was when two officers knocked at the front door. They left with the ring, and with her. Colin didn’t follow them.

I filed for divorce the following week, before Colin could. Because the down payment came from my inheritance, the court awarded me the house. Glenda pleaded guilty to theft and never set foot inside it again. Ned came by in the spring to take down the old camera himself. I thanked him with a pie. My mother’s ring is back on my finger, every day. Now my desk sits by the bay window, exactly where I wanted it.