And my father’s business, the thing our father had built with his own hands and left to us to steward — Torsten had been treating it as his private account since before our father was cold.

I looked through the glass at my mother in the garden, ordering my bruised wife to fix the flowers, and I understood that I was not looking at a family that had gone briefly wrong.

I was looking at what my family had quietly been, underneath, for longer than I had let myself see.

Through the glass doors I could see my mother in the garden, directing Ingrid to rearrange the centerpieces with hands that still trembled.

“Bring all of it tonight,” I said.

“You’re sure?