So instead of putting the wall back, I took out a few more bricks.

Sitting in that terminal, I went through the automated payments I personally covered every month — and there were so many of them, I realized, laid out in a list, so many quiet monthly withdrawals from my salary into the life of a family that had once made me sign a prenuptial agreement because they feared I was after their money.

There was the maintenance fee on Logan’s Manhattan condo.

There were Eleanor’s private physical therapy bills.

There was the salary for the family housekeeper, which the Sterlings had asked me to ‘advance,’ a loan that had somehow never once been repaid.

There were wedding vendor invoices still landing, weeks later, on my personal card.