My breathing slows down. His nice words take some of the sting out of Nate’s. Everything I’ve missed rushes forward. His deep voice. His steady presence. How he tries so hard to make things right. His earnestness. His faith in me. Lawrence enrages me, but I miss him. He makes me nuts, but I love him. Opposing ideas can be simultaneously true; one reinforces the other even as they’re both canceled out.

Without warning, my eyes fill, and I let myself cry. It’s such a relief, I feel a shift in my chest and my anger weakens. The hard edges loosen, pieces crumble away. What’s left begins to soften and slowly awaken. “I miss you, too, Lawrence,” I say finally.

When he grins, I see both apprehension and hope in his face, a father worried his forever girl is gone but equally sure she can never not love him.

He’s quiet. After a while, I assume he’s fallen asleep, but when I get up, he grabs my arm. “I don’t know how we got here, kiddo. Once upon a time, I was a cocky young buck with my whole life ahead of me. I felt like a king. I had a stunning wife, three amazing kids, everything money can buy. But it’s gone. My career, my family, my boys, you—all of it, gone.”

“It’s not gone, Lawrence. We’re still here. I’m here.”

“My best days are behind me, Cassie.”

The true story of Lawrence’s career is one of overestimated potential, exaggerated promises, and outsized ambition. He started at McKinsey, primed for the C-suite, but corporate life bored him senseless so he quit. After that, he kicked around for a while, did a bit of consulting, a lot of networking, and ended up in politics, where he found his footing. Ten years in, Lawrence was having a terrific run. He was instrumental in the election of two New York state senators and helped to reposition a few others. Word got around. Soon, he was clearing up DWIs, burying sex scandals, and handing out campaign jobs. Eleanor sniffed at this work, which she called lowbrow and undignified. But Lawrence was happy. Happy enough to set his sights on the big leagues. With Eleanor’s backing, the sky was the limit—a national election to manage, maybe even the presidency. But Lawrence aimed too high and got exhausted or distracted—both, more likely. He was never good with details, preferring the meet-and-greets to the sit-and-work. He made mistakes, minor blunders at first, then unforgivable lapses. Clients went elsewhere; referrals dried up. Soon, he was finished. The architect of his own ruin, he had only himself to blame.