The luxury credit lines were cancelled.

And they spent their weekends fulfilling the hours a court had ordered them to serve.

Twice, through relatives, they had reached out, asking for a loan to cover their legal fees, and both times it was my mother herself who took the call.

She did not scream and she did not weep and she did not curse them.

She simply told them, in a steady voice, that she hoped they would learn what it meant to earn their own living, and then she said goodbye and hung up the phone.

After Arthur gathered his papers and shook my hand and told me, kindly, that I had saved my mother’s life, and after I told him the truth, which was that we had saved each other, he drove away, and my mother and I sat together on the terrace and watched the sun go down behind the Texas hills, staining the whole sky gold and violet.