It was the principle beneath it: that her generosity was a gift she chose to give, and not a utility the household was entitled to draw from without acknowledgment, forever, simply because she had never before found the words to turn it off.

She kept giving, after the divorce.

That was the part people who heard the story got wrong; they imagined she had turned hard, closed her hand, become the kind of person who tracks every dollar and resents every favor.

She had not.

She helped a friend through a bad month.

She covered a young server’s meal when his card was declined, and told him to forget it.

She was still, at her core, a generous woman, because generosity had never been the problem.