He is, in the plainest possible sense, one of the people responsible for that building.

He could have said that sentence — I manage this property — and it would have been entirely true and it would have been, in that room, in that moment, devastating.

He said it to me in my kitchen and then put his head in his hands and said:

“Four words, Mom.

It was four words and it was true and I had it and I said the other thing.”

Part Twenty-Eight: The Monday