And now, watching her, I could see that it was finally, blessedly gone.

Her future was secure, wholly and unshakeably secure, and she was free to just be what she was, a bright ambitious young woman among thousands of them, worrying about her sociology paper and her constitutional law seminar instead of about the electric bill.

When she closed her laptop and announced she had submitted her paper three hours early and hugged us both and trotted off toward the law building, her ponytail bouncing in the autumn wind, I watched her blend seamlessly into the crowd of students, indistinguishable from any of them, carrying none of the old weight, and I thought my heart might burst.

Arthur sat beside me on the bench, my uncle, my mother’s brother, the shut door that had opened into the rest of our lives.