He’d hidden so much money in Odette over the years that he panicked trying to claw it back, threw what remained at reckless bets, and lost most of that too.

Rosalind, heartbroken and mortified, stripped his access to the trust and handed the whole estate to professional managers, so that the family fortune he’d spent his life circling now flows past him entirely, administered by strangers.

He lives in a rented two-bedroom near the interstate.

Once a month he calls my lawyer’s office and asks, very politely, whether he might send the girls a birthday card, or do a video call.

The girls decide that, not me.