Teresa did not promise that I could recover every dollar, because much of what I had given was plainly intended as assistance.

I appreciated her restraint.

For once I was not trying to win an argument with numbers.

I was trying to understand my choices.

The picture surprised me.

I wasn’t destitute, and I didn’t need to live in fear.

But the routine gifts had been consuming a worrying share of my annual cash flow.

If I kept paying them at the same level, I would eventually need to draw down investments I had meant to preserve for late retirement.