“You spent my work, and my money, and my professional reputation, and my willingness to keep making the numbers come out — for eleven years — and you never once thought about the balance, because it always went back up.

And then you drew the whole thing down to nothing and told me on the telephone that I had failed to provide you with a family.

“And now it’s nine months later and there’s a shortfall, and you have called the person you have always called.”

He started to cry.

It was real crying and it went on for a while, and I did not enjoy it, and I want that recorded because I have been asked.

“I did love you,” he said.