And I looked at him and felt, for just a moment, underneath everything else, something I had not expected: a flicker of pity, thin and cold.

Because there was a kind of poverty in it, in a man who had reached his age with money and charm and a functioning company, and who could look at a woman who had genuinely loved him and see nothing but a set of assets to be extracted.

He had been handed something real, my mother’s actual affection, freely given, and he had been unable to recognize it as anything but leverage.

That is not a thing to envy, even in a man you are about to defeat.