I just did not yet know the best thing about him.

The phrase you chose well, son, has stayed lodged in me for years, because of everything it accidentally revealed.

My father meant it as a compliment, and in his own frame it was one; he was congratulating Gabriel on a shrewd decision, on having accepted a good arrangement, on having played his part in the plan competently.

What my father could not have known, what would have astonished and probably enraged him to learn, was that Gabriel had indeed chosen well, but in a sense opposite to the one my father intended.

Gabriel had chosen well not because he had secured a payout, but because he had chosen to love and protect a person my father had reduced to a line item.