The security manager, Mr. Alvarez, explained that the station’s footage showed me buying the ticket the previous Friday, at 4:10 in the afternoon. It showed me tucking it under the strawberry magnet at home, too, because years ago our son had installed a small camera in the kitchen to watch our dog. Ray had forgotten it existed. The footage also showed him taking the ticket from the fridge on Tuesday night while I was at the hospital. Mr. Alvarez said claiming a prize with a stolen ticket was a crime.

Ray tried to argue that a husband and wife shared everything. Mr. Alvarez calmly pointed out that the signature on the back read Dolores Fenwick, in handwriting that matched the sixteen years of tickets I had saved in a shoebox. I had kept every losing ticket, and each one bore the same sentence. Ray went silent. A police officer then escorted him to a side room, and I drove to the office with my son and the shoebox on the seat beside me.

At the counter I signed my name beside the one on the ticket, and the signatures matched perfectly. Marcia gave me a warm smile and said the claim was approved. The payment of $3.1 million would arrive within two weeks. Ray was released that evening but charged with attempted fraud and theft. His lawyer told him the divorce papers he had filed only made things worse, because the court would see exactly how he had planned to cheat me.

I did not leave Ray penniless, but I did not hand him half either. The court gave him a modest share of our home and nothing from the prize. I paid off the mortgage, helped my sister with her hospital bills, and set aside money for each of our three children. Every Friday I still buy one ticket, and I still sign the back. Now I sign it just for the joy of it.