Then I remembered the ringing of the crystal and the burn beneath my sleeve, and the pity went where the heat had gone, and left the clarity behind.

Pity is a luxury you can afford only when nothing is at stake, and a great deal was at stake that night — eight hundred livelihoods, my mother’s firm, the last of my own self-respect.

I set the pity down the way I had set the heat down, deliberately, and kept only what the work required, and the work required that I see him clearly, which pity never lets you do.

“Eighteen months ago,” Malcolm said, “this company was closer to the end than most of you were ever told.