And what she said, which I did not understand for a year, was:

“Marcus, the last time somebody in your family solved my situation with a financial instrument, it took six years off me.

“I am not saying you are her.

I am saying I have exactly one way of telling the difference between people who help me and people who acquire me, and it is whether the thing has strings, and I cannot check for strings on something that large.”

What she accepted was a rental deposit and three months’ rent on a two-bedroom on Eighth Avenue, as a loan, documented, at a rate, which she repaid over fourteen months and which I still have the schedule for because she made me keep it.