Part of me wanted it as penance — a grand gesture, a deed with only her name on it, so that I could point to it and say look how much I have given back. But Amina saw through that, as she saw through most things, and named it: I was still, even in my remorse, trying to solve our marriage with a transaction, still the man who believed that money and grand gestures were how you managed a relationship, because that was the only model my mother had ever given me.

A property signed over is not the same as a partnership rebuilt.

What Amina wanted was not to be given things; she had never wanted to be given things.

She wanted, and had always wanted, to be an equal — to make the decisions of our life alongside me rather than beneath me or in spite of me.

Buying the home in both our names, with her share protected, was not the smaller gesture.

It was the larger one, because it was not a gift from a guilty husband to a wronged wife; it was two people, at last, owning their life together.