It had wounded me at first, that incuriosity, and then, over three years, I had stopped offering him the chance to be curious, and the two of us had reached a silent arrangement in which the most important thing in my life simply went unmentioned in my own marriage.

Standing on that stage saying my mother’s name into a microphone, I felt her there with me — felt that the announcement was, among everything else it was, the first time in three years I had said out loud, in front of my husband, exactly who I was and where I came from.

It had taken buying his company to do it.

But I said it.

Chapter 8 — Honest Executive Control

I told them the truth plainly, because the truth was enough.