Henry did not want to punish our son.

He wanted to protect me, and he understood something that I, in my maternal blindness, had never quite been willing to formulate: that the surest protection was not to hide the money or to lock it away, but to attach it, irrevocably, to Michael’s own conduct.

He made our son’s inheritance conditional on our son not being a predator.

And in doing so he turned Michael’s greed into a leash on Michael’s greed.

If Michael behaved, he got everything.