In the year and a half that Melania Trump has served as First Lady, she hasn’t said much. She’s given fewer speeches than her predecessors and rarely chooses to speak publicly. She doesn’t tweet or Instagram with any real regularity. For 24 days this spring, the public thought she was missing. When she does speak, it’s through increasingly defensive comments offered by East Wing communications director, Stephanie Grisham. But mainly she has been the taciturn wife at her husband’s side, leaving onlookers to read her thoughts onto her.

And so many have gone very far to give her the benefit of the doubt. The current crisis at the border, where 2,000 or so migrant children have been separated from their parents by Trump administration policy, offered yet another opportunity earlier this week. When the First Lady made a statement even slightly critical of the forced separations on Sunday, plenty of observers hailed it as a solid piece of criticism hurled from within Trumplandia itself. “Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her spokeswoman said. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

That generous Melania narrative officially met its end on Thursday, of causes related to fast fashion. While boarding a plane to McAllen, Texas, to tour a detention center housing 55 migrant children, the First Lady wore a jacket from Zara that said on the back “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?” Large swaths of the Internet immediately seized on the wardrobe choice, parsing it for motive. That she wore it at all was wild in and of itself—that she didn’t think about context or optics, that no one told her, that she even owns such a pouty jacket favored by Instagram influencers. Perhaps she grabbed an intern’s jacket? (Her stylist has claimed ignorance.) Maybe she didn’t realize the $39 garment had a message emblazoned on it? Why was she wearing something that wasn’t Calvin Klein or Givenchy or Balmain anyway? Could it have been some misbegotten attempt at appearing relatable?

In any case, she took the jacket off during her visit to the center, and Grisham, with her signature prickliness, issued a statement: “It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message. After today’s important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn’t going to choose to focus on her wardrobe.”

Then she wore the jacket, which again read “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?,” on her flight back.

Up until now, the silent-film-star version of Melania always left room for a generous reading, and her clothing choice has often filled the silence. Fashion is an imprecise medium of expression. (See: her post-“grab her by the pussy” pussy-bow shirt or the State of the Union white pantsuit.) This one-two punch left much less to mystery, and her husband, for one, read her loud and clear.