I have tried, since, to describe what it feels like to discover that you have been cast as the fall guy in a crime you did not know was being committed, and the closest I can come is this: it is the sensation of your entire past rearranging itself, in an instant, into a shape you did not know it had.

Because in that moment, every kindness the Vances had ever shown me, every inclusion, every gala invitation, every insistence that I remain an authorized user, every reason Julian had given me to stay, revealed itself as something other than what I had believed it to be.

I had thought, in my worst moments, that they merely tolerated me, used me for my money, valued me only for what I provided.

That was painful enough.