Helen walked beside him, her hand looped through his arm, her steps careful but steady, and she spoke about ordinary things like the changing weather and the way the ducks near the pond had grown bold enough to approach strangers. Matthew listened, nodded, smiled when appropriate, yet inside him there was a hollow space that no contract or achievement had ever managed to fill.
Six months earlier, his software firm had crossed a threshold few ever reached, transforming him overnight into a man whose name appeared in financial headlines and whose net worth invited curiosity and envy in equal measure.
