“Let it fall,” I said softly.

“What?

Roderick, that’s billions of dollars.” “I don’t care,” I said — and for the first time in thirteen years it was the plain truth.

I have tried, since, to explain to people what it felt like to say those three words and mean them, and I have never quite managed it, because it sounds insane from the outside.

Billions of dollars.

A lifetime of work.