I also had to learn a subject I liked even less than mechanical fatigue analysis: cash flow.

A promising design could still fail if we couldn’t pay the people needed to make it safe.

I took contract engineering work, sometimes during preschool hours, and shared an office with Priya in a converted warehouse.

My mother helped with childcare, but I hired additional support rather than assume her energy was unlimited.

She had her own appointments and friendships.

I had been so afraid of being abandoned again that, without realizing it, I had started depending on her as if she would never need anything.