“Five years.” He watches her closely, turning the number over in his head. Thinking it through again—dying for some unknowable future, some vision of a changed world. Discovering it had just ground on, stubbornly refusing to transform. He remembers—he's still half in love with her idealism. Those fireflies on her wall. “I'm sorry the world let you down.”

He does smile then, knowing as he does that it's woefully inadequate. Pocket change in the midst of opulence.

“A lot of this was the decorator.” He delivers it without an ounce of irony. She's going to punch him in the mouth. He'd welcome it, too—it's that kind of a sentence. William stays where he is a moment or two, hesitating between the man who belongs in this room and the one who doesn't. Crosses to Tess, reaches for her, expecting her to snap.

“Don't take shots at her,” he says, looking steadily at her. “All right?”