I did not freeze his accounts; he had no accounts.

Every card I deactivated was mine — issued to me, drawn on funds I earned, held in my name, with Christopher listed on each one as just what he had always been in reality if not in his own imagination: a supplementary user, permitted to spend on my credit at my discretion.

All I did, standing in that sunlight, was stop extending him that permission.

It was the most ordinary act imaginable, legally: a primary account holder revoking authorized-user privileges, a thing that happens ten thousand times a day, a right so basic it requires no justification at all.