It could buy security, property, comfort, and the freedom to start over.

It could not buy the courage to ask someone to stay.

It could not buy three years of conversations we had never had.

It could not buy trust once withheld, or tenderness offered too late.

Those things had to be given, freely and repeatedly.

That night, instead of reaching for a contract, I reached for my wife’s hand.

And this time I knew she was reaching back.

PART 21