He nodded slowly, taking this seriously, the way he takes everything.

“You could just tell them it has to say you didn’t,” he said. “And if they don’t want to, that’s them being embarrassed. That’s not you being wrong.”

I have a graduate degree’s worth of thoughts about what happened in the following six weeks, and none of them are as good as that sentence.

Kit went back with a counter: sixty thousand, no confidentiality clause, and a written correction from Oakridge Management stating that the separation had been recorded in error, that no theft occurred, and that no complaint against me was ever substantiated or investigated.

Correction to be sent to Verdant Screening Solutions with instruction to reissue the report, and to any other party who had received it in the last three years.

Thirty-two thousand less than what was on the table.