I only found out afterward, by contrast — by sitting across a kitchen table from a man who leaned in when I talked about a hard case, and feeling astonished, and then, a beat later, feeling something colder underneath the astonishment: the dawning realization that I should not have been astonished at all, that this was simply what it was supposed to feel like the entire time, and that someone had let me forget.

Recalibrating back up, learning to expect decency again as a floor rather than receive it as a gift, has been one of the quiet works of the life I have now.

Zachary did not give me more than I deserved.

He gave me exactly what I had always deserved and had been slowly talked out of expecting.

The astonishment was the measure of how far I had been lowered.

Chapter 15 — Both of Us Will Be Right Here