It was the most wrongheaded, backwards, heartbreaking thing I had ever heard, and it came from the deepest love I had ever known, and I could not let it stand for one more second.

It is a particular kind of belief, and I think a great many people carry some version of it without ever examining it, especially those who have spent their lives being the strong one, the provider, the fixer.

It goes like this: I am loved for what I do, and if I can no longer do it, I will no longer be loved.

Marcus had built his whole identity on being the one who took care of everyone, and I understood, standing in that garden, where it had come from, this terrible arithmetic of his.