That is the strange, narrow peace I’ve made with it: not gratitude for what he did, which was unforgivable, but for the fact that it was finally large enough to end an arrangement my own fear never would have.

Warner’s own firm underwent a hostile restructuring and he was pushed into a back-room advisory role, no longer anyone’s golden god.

Dinah began bringing me her contracts to audit, awed by what she found in the red ink; Adelina, her health declining, took to sitting in the sunroom saying she’d been too cruel.

A year out, on the courthouse steps with the final decree, Warner told me that if I’d ever said I wanted to run my own show he’d have bankrolled me.

“I did say it, Warner,” I told him.

“Every time I mentioned my MBA, every time I suggested a consulting wing.