I married him at forty-two, in a small ceremony, our children beside us, and I wore my father’s necklace, and I thought about how my father had wanted, more than anything, for me to be able to leave any room I needed to leave — and how I had finally built a life I would never need to leave, precisely because I now knew that I could.

That, it turns out, is the only foundation a marriage should ever stand on: not that you cannot leave, but that you could, and you stay anyway, freely, every day, on purpose.

Years later, after I was appointed Vice President of the investment committee, a reporter asked me what had inspired me to reclaim my career.

“I just remembered,” I said, “that a woman can be many things at once, without having to shrink any of them to fit someone else’s comfort.

And honestly?

It all started because a man forgot to press a little red button that said ‘End Meeting.'”

THE END.