It was a stage set.

Every object in it had been chosen to communicate power to visitors, and not one of them had been chosen because I loved it.

The books were props.

The art was an investment.

The great desk was a throne built to make the men across from it feel small.

I had spent a fortune assembling a room designed to impress people I did not respect, and I had sat in it, night after night, being impressive and being alone.

And a few hours’ drive away, I now knew, there was a small apartment with geraniums and mismatched curtains and two boys doing homework at a shared desk, that contained more actual life than my entire ten-acre estate.