I want to be honest that the money was not the point, and that I knew, even as I placed the order, that eight thousand dollars was an absurd amount to spend on a dinner.

I did not do it because I thought three meals were worth eight thousand dollars.

I did it because I had finally understood the language these people actually spoke, and it was not the language of kindness or fairness or family, none of which had ever moved them an inch.

It was money.

It had always, only, been money — Wilhelmina’s whole authority was built on the pretense that her son was wealthy and I was lucky to have him; Sorrel’s entire personality was the performance of a lifestyle; the transfers I hadn’t yet uncovered were, I would learn within the day, the true secret engine of the whole family.

So I answered them in the only language they respected.