Free her father’s trust, restore her independence, put the leverage back in her hands, and the terrified woman became a foundation director in eighteen months.

She was never weak.

She was only, for a very long time, kept without the tools.

That is what we give people back, now.

Not rescue.

Tools.

And I have come to believe the distinction between those two words is the most important thing I learned in the whole of this, more important than anything about Arthur or Luca, because it changed not only my career but my entire understanding of how one person actually helps another.

A rescue makes the rescuer the hero and the rescued a passive object — someone things are done to, lifted out of danger by a stronger person, and left, ever after, in debt to their savior and uncertain of their own power.