Lena showed me an opening at a regional nonprofit that taught financial skills to women returning to work.

It wasn’t a glamorous position.

It didn’t come with private drivers or fancy dinners.

It did, however, require someone who understood budgets, could explain a balance sheet, and had patience with frightened people.

I saved the posting.

For sixteen years I had worried that the world would not have a place for me if Dennis stopped paying for it.

That night I began to imagine that perhaps it did.

PART 8