I had bought my mother the best of everything.

It had simply never occurred to me that the thing she wanted could not be bought, and that it was the one thing, in all my wealth, I had never thought to give her.

My father had raised me to solve every problem by applying force or money until it yielded, and against most problems that works, which is exactly what makes it so dangerous.

It had worked so reliably for so long that I had stopped being able to recognize the one kind of problem it cannot touch — the kind where the only acceptable currency is your own presence, your own time, your own ordinary unpurchasable self, sitting in a chair beside a bed, doing nothing anyone could invoice.