They could not see inside our house, and they could not measure what had actually passed between an old man and the small family he had rescued.

I did not grieve a fortune.

I grieved a person, a specific, particular, prickly, generous person who had asked me why my hands shook and had listened to the answer and had then moved heaven and earth to still them.

You do not get many people like that in a life.

When you lose one, you grieve, whatever the world decides your grief must mean, and you do not let anyone tell you it was not real.

Chapter 22 — Guardian Angel