His marriage.

His career.

His name.

Even the woman he had abandoned his dying mother for, gone the instant the money was.

He had dismantled his entire life himself, brick by brick, and handed me the only tool required, which was patience, and the willingness to let him talk.

He signed the divorce papers with a shaking hand. Are you really going to throw away twenty years? he asked me, and I shook my head, and told him the truth: that I was not throwing twenty years away — I was only refusing to give him a single further day of my future.