“You were sitting less than thirty feet away, Mr.

Ashby.” “I — I didn’t realize she was your wife!” Rafael offered a cold, humorless smile.

“Precisely.”

My father stepped between them, loud now.

“Now wait just a minute!

You cannot turn a minor family disagreement into commercial retaliation!” And Rafael looked at him with complete contempt, and answered in a way that has stayed with me, because it drew the exact line I want to draw here too.

“I am not retaliating,” he said.