“I thought we were building a life together.

I didn’t understand that I was living with a man who was calculating my worth in dollars.” Then she looked across at me, and her eyes were bright with something too deep and too simple to be called only gratitude.

“If you hadn’t been in that ER that night.

If you hadn’t recognized that tiny patch —”

“I did what any doctor would do,” I said, taking her hand.

“And what any true friend would do.” She squeezed my hand, and a genuine, unburdened smile broke across her face — the first I had seen from her in months, maybe in years, maybe since long before that night, since back when the man beside her at those Christmas dinners was already quietly running the numbers.