“Might?” she replies. “You can do whatever you want after this, Arthur.”

He gets to go back to an America looking forward to more than a century of growth, innovation, optimism. That, in Tess’s books, is worth planning for.

She looks out at the path ahead of them, still narrow and still with its ups and downs, and she glances back at him. She guesses if this were wrong, he’d say something, so she just carries on, hopping back down on the other side.

“You can risk your neck on all the treasure hunts you want.”