And tribute, however lovingly disguised, is the currency of servitude, not of love.

What I reclaimed, the day I froze those accounts, was not primarily my money — I had always had the money.

What I reclaimed was my agency over it, the simple, fundamental power to decide who received my generosity and who did not.

And once I had that back, I found, to my own surprise, that I could give freely again, even to Beatrice, even after everything, because a gift I choose to give cannot diminish me the way a tribute extracted from me always did.

The supplements cost me almost nothing.