I did not fall for the promise of money.

I want to be clear about that, because it matters to everything that came after.

I fell for the sincerity — for the unpolished, burning earnestness in his eyes, which I believed, and which may even have been real, once.

Two years later we married in a modest ceremony, no cascading orchids, no string quartet, just the warmth of the few people we loved, and I stepped across that threshold certain I was entering a sanctuary of mutual respect and equal partnership.

I have thought a great deal, since, about that promise — you will never have to look at a price tag again — because of the terrible irony buried inside it.