And that was the part I hadn’t gotten to yet, because I’d been busy being righteous in a bathroom.

Four employees. A contract for grain elevator parts. Wyatt Cooper, who has three kids and who cosigned on faith.

I said, “Then we’d better not lose.”

Gavin let out a breath and something in his shoulders came down about an inch, and I have thought a great deal since about how easy it was, in that moment, to be the person who made him feel better. How practiced I already was at it.

That’s the thing nobody tells you about coming out of a house like that one. You don’t come out of it with your instincts washed clean.

You come out of it very, very good at managing other people’s feelings, and then you go home to a man who loves you and you keep doing it, because it’s the only thing you got good at during the worst year of your life.