Arthur listened without interrupting, his lined face unreadable in the lamplight.

He did not offer the empty comforts that people usually offer, the it will work out and the have you tried this.

He took it in, all of it, and was quiet for a long moment afterward.

Then he said good night, and I went home to my small apartment and my sleeping son, and I thought that was the end of it, that I had merely embarrassed myself in front of a rich old man.

I could not have been more wrong.