Not that he was a murderer.

That he had, somewhere along the way, stopped experiencing his own parents as people at all.

And a father can survive a great many things his son does to him.

But there is no surviving, unchanged, the discovery that you have become, to your own child, a line item.

Chapter 12 — To Consequences

Amber was laughing again when I came back in, one arm looped through my son’s, restored to her confidence.

When she saw me she raised her champagne flute in a mock toast.