I had agreed to that for two years.

I was, as of that night, withdrawing my agreement.

Somewhere across town, I knew, a folder had been set down in front of my father-in-law, and he had opened it expecting the comfortable nothing it had always been, and had found instead a number with his own party’s choices printed under it, and I did not have to be in the room to see his face, because I had spent two years studying that family and I knew exactly how the surprise would travel around the table.

I felt no glee about it.