The judge gave him thirty-five years, no parole.

I did not stay to watch them take him out.

Eighteen months later, the summer sun comes off the water outside a house I bought on the Maine coast, in Kennebunkport, where the sea air moves through the open windows all day.

Wren, a fierce blue-eyed toddler now, chases a wooden pull-toy across the kitchen floor and shrieks with a laughter that has never once had fear in it.

My brother comes through the patio door with two iced coffees and asks how the firm is doing — thriving, I tell him; we moved the last of my grandfather’s holdings into Wren’s irrevocable trust this morning, sealed, transparent, safe.