I didn’t see Roger before the surgery, but his immediate recovery went well enough that he managed a solo trip to his DC condo about a month later, and I spent the night with him there. By this time, they’d determined that he had brain cancer and it was not curable. “If I could, I’d leave you four million dollars,” he told me in bed. “Five hundred thousand dollars for every year we’ve had together.” I stayed quiet. I thought it was an uncharacteristically crass thing to say since he’d made it clear he wouldn’t be able to bequeath me with so much as $5 after he was gone. To promise someone money without giving it to them is to demean both parties. But I know he meant—or thought he meant—what he said, and that he said it to indicate how much our relationship had been worth to him, though I had no idea what percentage of his wealth that number represented. Given the nature of us, this might sound silly, but it was weird of him to put a single, solid sum on it, not flattering as he may have thought. He was, unfortunately, right about my relationship with money; I could be avaricious, but I wasn’t impressed by people having a lot of it nor giving it to me. If he’d left me with $4 million, it would have changed my life, but it wouldn’t have changed my opinion of him or how much I believed he cared about me.

Roger did not leave me millions, or even a million. But he did write me large checks, including one that was flagged by a banker, who sent the image of it to both Roger and his wife.