I would not block the sale. More than eighty employees had waited a decade for the company to become valuable, and they deserved their payout. But the deal would proceed on my terms: an independent valuation, two years of guaranteed employment for every worker, and my proceeds paid directly to my holding company. Within a week, the distributor raised its offer by nearly two million dollars.

Brian found me in the parking lot afterward, his tie loosened and his steak-dinner confidence gone. He asked whether any of it had ever been real. I told him I had asked myself that same question for two days. I remembered him coming home terrified when payroll nearly failed, and how I had held his hand before writing the check that saved him. I told him I had loved him, but love and usefulness were not the same thing.