Before I left, he asked, “May I kiss you?”

I said yes.

The kiss was tentative, warm, and entirely different from the hurried courthouse ceremony.

Afterward he rested his forehead against mine for one brief moment, then stepped back and let me drive away.

The new apartment had beige walls, squeaking kitchen cabinets, and a small balcony overlooking a parking lot.

It belonged to me through a lease I had signed with income I would earn.

That evening I ate takeout noodles on the floor, surrounded by unpacked boxes, and felt rich in a way a $2.4 billion message could never measure.