In the afternoon, a man interested in replacing his decade-old Odyssey van with a new one wanted to know how much his trade was worth. You never answered that question without asking a few of your own.

“Are you the original owner?” I asked. He was. “Have you maintained the car?” He said he’d done most of the recommended services. “Has the vehicle ever been in an accident?”

“Oh yeah,” he volunteered. “Three years ago I rear-ended a guy, they had to replace everything up front.”

I explained that an accident translated into a much lower trade-in value. His counterargument was that all the parts in the front of the car were newer, so if anything, the car should be worth more. He wasn’t happy with the number I gave him, and left.

Twice I called my ex-wife in Stratford, where she worked at one of the car lots Bob owned, and twice I left messages, both asking how thrilled she was with Bob’s plan to immortalize our daughter on a bathroom calendar at the local Goodyear tire store.

After the second call, my head cleared some, and I realized this wasn’t just about Sydney. It was about Susanne, about Bob, about how much better her life was with him, about how much I’d screwed things up.

I’d been selling cars since I was twenty, and I was good at it, but Susanne thought I was capable of more. You shouldn’t be working for somebody else, she said. You should be your own man. You should have your own dealership. We could change our lives. Send Syd to the best schools. Make a better future for ourselves.