They lost their standing in the community.

Their marriage, which had been built on edited truths, could not survive the truth, and it collapsed.

Their house was sold.

And Michael lost the inheritance he had committed all of it to protect.

There is a grim symmetry to that ending that I have never quite gotten over.

Everything my son did, every forged signature and altered record and staged injury, all of it was in the service of securing a fortune he was afraid of losing.

And the single, direct, unavoidable consequence of all that effort was to lose it, completely and permanently.