He used to work for someone who set really high goals for people. Like ... say, a knight would have to have victory in a certain amount of battles every month, or he couldn't be a knight anymore. Think of it like that. Only, the number my dad's boss set was really, really high. My Dad was good at what he did, so he was able to do it, but ... it made him really tired, and really stressed out, and one day his heart decided it couldn't keep running his body if he was going to work that hard, so he got really sick.

[it was very close to how her own mother had explained it to her, really. only Emily Deetz had actually explained it in real estate terms, since Lydia had known what a mortgage was since she was five. she'd asked her Dad to play dolls with her and Charles Deetz had Ken draw up one for the cardboard Dream House she'd made out of shoeboxes.]