I MARRIED A PRISONER FOR MONEY WHILE HE WAS SERVING A TWELVE-YEAR SENTENCE — BUT AFTER HIS CONVICTION WAS OVERTURNED, HE CAME TO MY APARTMENT WITH A BLACK BOX AND SAID, “NOW IT’S MY TURN TO BE HONEST.”

He remembered my brother’s birthday without me ever mentioning the exact date twice. He asked, every single visit, whether I’d actually eaten that day, the way someone asks when they genuinely want the honest answer. He sent letters with small, careful sketches doodled into the margins — a bird once, a coffee cup another time, small unremarkable things that somehow made those envelopes feel considerably heavier than the two thousand dollars folded inside my own conscience every month.

At first, I only acted like I cared. It felt easier that way, professional almost, a performance I could step out of the moment I closed my apartment door each evening.

Then, somewhere across those first several months, I stopped acting.