A wheelchair I was forbidden to touch without permission.

And a laugh so loud that strangers turned around.

I married her with greed somewhere inside me.

She knew.

By the time she died, I no longer cared about the mansion enough to understand why I had ever thought it was the prize.

That does not make me noble.

It makes me someone who finally learned the difference between wanting what a person owns and wanting the person.

Florence knew the difference before I did.

That was her trap.

I thought I was walking toward an inheritance.

She let me keep walking long enough to discover I had found a life instead.