What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to learn how to be a father,” I said.

“And for the first time in my life, I’m going to be a man worth knowing.” We hugged gently, stepped out of the high-rise, and walked our separate ways into the city.

I have thought of her often since, and always with gratitude.

We had both been sold into that marriage.

In the wreckage of it, we had somehow handed each other the one thing our families never would have: the permission to walk away.