The kind that actually works is quiet and patient and dressed as love.

Nathan never forbade me anything.

He worried about me.

He noticed, gently, that I seemed tired after a long week at the firm, and wondered aloud whether I really needed to work so hard.

He observed, with tender concern, that I’d seemed a little scattered lately, a little emotional, and suggested I not take on the big case.

He rearranged our life, kindness by kindness, so that my world grew a little smaller each season and the shrinking always felt like being cared for.

And here is the thing that still unsettles me most: I have a trained eye for exactly this.