Chloe broke down, clutching her son to her.

“We’ll pay for everything, Evelyn,” she sobbed.

“The medical bills, the therapy, all of it, whatever he needs.” Julian shook his head slowly.

“You still don’t understand, Chloe,” he said.

“Some things cannot be fixed with a check.” I understood the impulse behind Chloe’s offer, and I do not think it was entirely cynical; people reach for money in a crisis because money is a thing they can offer, a way of doing something when they feel the enormity of what has happened and their own part in it.

But the offer also revealed, without her meaning it to, the same failure of understanding that ran all through that family.