Rosamund’s back straightened at the stove.

Chadworth had not heard either of his daughters invoke their mother in over a year.

He had assumed, in the vague way he had assumed a great many things that year, that it was because they were healing.

“On your mother,” he said.

“I promise.”

Part Ten: The Restructuring

He fired four people that week and it had nothing to do with theft.

His executive assistant of six years, who had triaged an email from a household employee about the welfare of his children into a folder marked Non-urgent — Domestic. He gave her a year’s salary and a reference that was honest and did not destroy her, because she had done exactly what he had trained her to do, and the training was his.