But Veronica had only been able to do what she did because the ground had been prepared, years earlier, by a love that could not say no.

When Manuel sold his dream land to keep Derek out of prison, he had surely experienced it as the deepest act of fatherly love, a sacrifice, a gift.

And it had been a sacrifice; the land was gone, and his father’s retirement dream with it.

But it had not been love, or not only love, or not the kind of love that actually helps.

Because what Derek had learned from that sacrifice was not gratitude, and not responsibility, but the opposite: that his failures had no real cost to him, that no matter how badly he mismanaged his life, his father would step in and pay, that he could take enormous risks with other people’s money and other people’s dreams because the consequences would always land on someone else.