"Of course."
"Yes."
"You sold yourself to keep me in school?"
"I did it to keep a roof over our heads."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
His anger softened into something worse.
"I can get a job."
"You sold yourself to keep me in school?"
"You are finishing school, Owen. That's what matters."
"Sadie, please."
"No. You graduate. You get out. And you become someone no rich woman can price."
He looked away first.
That's how I knew he understood.
***
The wedding happened behind scratched glass.
Jonah sat across from me in a beige prison uniform, thin and tired-eyed.
He looked away first.
"You don't have to pretend I'm a good man," he said.
"Good, because I'm not that generous."
I expected anger, coldness, or arrogance.
Instead, he looked ashamed.
"I did take money," he said. "$18,000 from a restricted foundation account. My trust was frozen after my father fell ill, and I called it borrowing from my future."
"I'm not that generous."
"That's a fancy way to say stealing."
"Yes," he said. "It is."
