A way to open her hand to whom she chose, when she chose, and also to close it, the difference between a gift and a levy, between a generosity that dignifies the giver and an entitlement that erases her.

She would give for the rest of her life, gladly, to people who received it as the choice it was.

She had stopped letting people who mistook it for their due drain her dry in the name of a love that only ran one direction.

Chapter 17 — The Thermostat, Herself

On the first crisp evening of autumn, Marisol walked the ground floor, opened every downstairs window, and turned the main cooling system off herself.

The small irony of the act made her laugh out loud in the quiet room — that the thing that had ended her marriage was a woman shutting off the air, and that here she was, freely, joyfully, doing exactly that, because now it was wholly, without question,, and uncontested, her choice to make.