If he had swept in and solved my life with his money, I would have simply traded one dependence for a plusher one, and learned nothing.

If I had made caring for him my whole purpose, I would have vanished into a new man the way I’d vanished into the old one, and called it love again.

We both had that pattern available to us, and we both, without ever discussing it, declined.

He built his legs back and I built my agency, side by side, cheering each other on and lifting nothing for each other that the other could lift alone.

Whatever we are to each other now — and we are a great deal — it rests on that: two whole people, standing on their own feet, choosing each other’s company rather than needing it.