Alecto doesn't know what to say, doesn't know if it helps that Joshua had only recently found the coat instead of having locked it away for much longer. A lie is a lie, and a home can still be a cage.

"Why," he asks, flatly, unable to move. He thinks maybe he's being too unforgiving, too cruel, because he already knows the answer: that Joshua loved him. And that when a man is so helplessly so, he can confuse things like possession for adoration.

But he wants to hear his husband admit it.