When he opened the folder and read the first three pages, he did not deny it. He did not say I had misunderstood. He did not tell me it was all in my head. He cried. He sat in his forty-thousand-dollar Herman Miller desk chair in his glass-walled office on the fourteenth floor of a building in midtown Atlanta, and he covered his face with his hands, and he cried. And while he was crying, he said the things that men like Anthony say when they realize the folder is in the room.

He said, "I have a daughter." He said, "My wife will leave me." He said, "I can't lose this job. I have a mortgage. I have three kids in private school. Please. Please. Please." He said, "What do you want? A raise? A transfer? Anything. I will fix this. I will never speak to you again. I will hand you any account you want. Please don't take this to HR. I'm begging you. I'm begging you." And I stood in his office and I watched a grown man beg me for his career and his marriage, and I felt, for the first time in six months, completely calm.