Theresa, meanwhile, sold her home, paid off what she could, and moved into a modest one-bedroom apartment, living, for the first time in her adult life, strictly within her means.

Aaron worked to stabilize himself after his own divorce from Lauren, who was sentenced to probation and restitution for her fraud.

And Daniel paid his monthly restitution check, on time, every month.

We never spoke, outside of the formal accounting confirmations.

There was nothing left to say.

I noticed, over that year, a change in myself that went deeper than the business or the boundaries, and it is the thing I am most grateful for.

For four years, and honestly for much of my life before Daniel, I had been a person who could not rest, because rest required believing that I had done enough, and I had never believed that, because there had always been another bill, another crisis, another person’s need pressing on me, and some part of me had absorbed the lesson that my worth depended on my usefulness, that I was loved, insofar as I was loved, for what I could provide.