The people who had spent years telling me, in rooms I wasn’t in, exactly what they thought of me and my children were going to hear the truth in a room I was in, with the lights on.

Twenty seconds was not a magician’s flourish.

It was the amount of time I gave myself to stop being the man who kept everyone comfortable.

“You had a chance tonight,” I said to Lindsay, “to stand up for our children.

You chose the ocean view.” And I set my glass down and let the first thing arrive.

Chapter 9 — Grover’s Phone