But it was real, and it had a real cost.

By my forties I had built something large and could not tell, anymore, who in my life was there for me and who was there for the gravity my money exerted.

Every kindness had a question mark behind it.

So when I met Zane, and he did not know who I was, and seemed to want nothing from me but my company, I let myself believe I had finally found the thing money can’t buy.

He was attentive in those first months.

He remembered how I took my coffee.