If you had known him, you would understand why this particular betrayal cut the way it did.

Thomas was the kind of person who read the fine print, who kept a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and a spare in the garage, who had a will drawn up the week his first child was born because that was simply the responsible thing to do.

He bought that life insurance policy the way he did everything, deliberately, thinking of the people he loved, imagining a future he hoped would never come and preparing for it anyway.

I can see him doing it — sitting at his kitchen table with the paperwork, choosing the coverage, thinking this is so that no matter what happens to me, they’ll be all right. He built a wall of money around his children specifically so that his death could not touch them.