That is what he was doing.

A sixty-two-year-old man with a bad hip stood in a ninety-four-degree courtyard with his back to a hundred people so that his wife could sit down for a minute without being looked at.

I want to set out who he actually is, because the version in everybody’s head — including mine for fifteen years — is a rich man who bought a woman a car.

Gideon Frayne was a regional vice president at a building supply company.