What they had failed to understand — what people who see other people as assets always fail to understand — is that a person is not a pipe.

My father’s goodwill did not flow through me automatically; it flowed through me because I chose to let it, and I could close that valve as easily as I could walk out a door.

They had grabbed for the connections and, in grabbing, shown me exactly why they should never have them.

You do not get to treat the bride as a servant and keep the father-in-law as a patron.

They had wanted both.

They would get neither.