There were conditions.

There was, in the language Eric liked to use, a nuclear option — a clause that let me take the whole thing back, in full and at once, if certain lines were ever crossed.

I signed it hoping I would never need it, the way you buy insurance hoping the house never burns.

And I kept all of it secret.

That was my one truly soft decision in the whole hard arrangement.

I let Steven present the house to the world as his own triumph, his own recovery, his own success.