She nodded. Then: “Your grandmother used to fix things around the house. No one ever thanked her either.”

I was tired of it. Not tired of her , but tired of the invisible wall she’d built between her independence and our love. So I decided to run an experiment.

There it was. Not in a dramatic confession. Not in a tearful embrace. In a quiet observation about an ironing board.

Without looking up, she said: “I don’t know how to let people love me. It feels like losing.”