They were tears of relief so profound it felt like a physical release, like setting down a weight I had not known I was carrying.

Because that salary was mine.

That work was mine.

Not Julian’s, not the household’s, not anyone’s but my own, the first thing in twelve years that was entirely, unarguably mine.

It was a small piece of ground, but it was ground, and I was standing on it, and no one could move the money out from under it in the night.

What surprised me most about that job, in the months that followed, was how much it healed that had nothing to do with money at all.