I had told myself, for years, that this was love in its purest form: help given without needing credit, the highest kind of giving.

And there was some truth in that.

But sitting in that underground office on the last night of my marriage, I could finally see the other truth underneath it, which was that anonymous giving had also been a way of hiding, and that a person who is always the invisible benefactor is also, always, invisible.

I had made myself indispensable and unseen at the same time, and then spent eight years wounded that no one saw me.

I had done it to myself, one anonymous trust at a time.

That recognition did not make me regret the giving.