He had possessed millions.

He had possessed a company and a corner office and a mahogany desk and a watch worth more than the truck I used to drive.

And he had lived, the whole time, in a kind of poverty so complete that I am not sure he ever once felt it.

Because he had believed, truly believed, that human connection was a thing you could purchase, or simulate, or hire out, or discard when it became inconvenient.

He had looked at his own mother’s loneliness and seen a public relations problem.