It changed nothing.

It froze no account and voided no contract.

It was the one purely human thing I let myself do in a day that was otherwise as cold and exact as an audit, and I needed it, and I did it, and then I capped the marker and took my daughter back and left it there for him to find.

I looked at the portrait for a moment before I turned away, because I wanted to remember the woman in it — the one under his arm, smiling, in the white dress, who had believed the whole thing.

I did not hate her.