Desmond and Karen’s marriage deteriorated exactly the way marriages built on shared extraction often do: once the source narrows, resentment becomes visible. They fought over money, access, image, and blame. He wanted sympathy. She wanted replacement strategy. They divorced three years after the conference room. Karen went after what remained of his liquidity with a ruthlessness that would have impressed me if I hadn’t been so disgusted by the symmetry. He moved to another state eventually, took a position in a mid-level sales operation far from our industry, and disappeared into a life that sounded, by all accounts, adequate. Which is to say, the kind of life many decent people would be grateful for and men like Desmond experience as punishment.
He never apologized.
Not once in any way that qualified as apology.