“You should tell Mom that.”

“I intend to.” For once, I understood that intention would mean nothing unless I followed it with action.

PART 6: Thirteen Years Earlier

The morning I left Marianne, rain washed the windows of our apartment until the city looked like a watercolor someone had dropped in a sink.

We were not wealthy then.

I was a junior partner in a small property investment firm, and most of my suits came from the clearance rack of an expensive shop.

Marianne was finishing a postgraduate degree in applied mathematics while tutoring evenings at a community center.