I have turned that question over many times — how much money do you actually have. Of everything Bryce said to me that day, it is the one that tells you the most about him, and about the marriage, and about why I could set the keys on the desk and walk out without a backward glance.

Because in the moment his whole life was coming apart — the son gone, the home gone, the wife on a plane — the thing that surfaced in him, the reflex under all the others, was to find out the number.

Not to ask whether his daughters were frightened.

Not to ask what he had done, or how to make it right.

To ask how much.