It had been gone for a while, burned clean away in the events of that morning and not replaced by anything bitter.

What had taken its place was not warmth, exactly, and not coldness either, but something steadier than both — the calm, unshakeable boundary of a woman who had learned, in her sixties, after a lifetime of giving herself away, that she would never again permit herself to be discarded, without a word, by the people she loved.

“Some lessons are expensive, Steven,” I said gently.

“This one cost you a marriage, and a house, and six years of your life you can’t have back.