I had asked the question — are you sorry you hit me, or sorry you found out how much money I control — not to trap him but because I truly wanted to know, and because his answer, whatever it was, would tell me whether there was a single thing left in him worth the grief I was carrying.

And his silence answered it completely.

Because a man who was sorry for the right reason would not have had to think.

The words would have been right there, would have come tumbling out before I finished the question — I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m sorry I became that, the money has nothing to do with it. That answer requires no calculation; it is simply true or it isn’t, and if it’s true it arrives instantly.

What I watched instead was Jonathan calculate.