He was not pushing me.

He was only laying the two futures side by side the way he laid receipts side by side, so I could see them both before I chose.

I opened the transfer details.

For three years I had done a small quiet thing after every Friday withdrawal that I had never mentioned to anyone, not even to Marcus: I had immediately recreated the payment for the following week, so that it would never lapse, so that the money would never fail to arrive, so that I would never once make my parents wonder whether it was coming.

I had been more faithful to that transfer than my parents had ever been to my daughter’s birthday.