A man saves your life and your children’s lives; surely, somewhere down the line, he collects.

Surely there is a price.

I waited for it, in those first months, the way you wait for the other shoe.

It never came.

And slowly I understood that it was never going to come, because Marcus was constitutionally incapable of issuing the invoice — that in his understanding of the world, a rescue that came with a bill attached was not a rescue at all but a purchase, and he had not purchased me, and would have been horrified by the suggestion.

He wanted, more than he wanted my love, for me to know that my love was not owed.