“ ‘I’ll tell you why Fr. Kevin came South,’ she said. ‘He came South because we needed him. Oh, there’s so much I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. And when I saw you in the Grand Luminière, when I saw you talking to Goblin and embracing Goblin, I thought, God, you’ve answered my prayer, you’ve given me someone with secrets! Only now I realize it doesn’t change things with me. It can’t. Because I can’t tell you everything.’

“She began to cry.

“ ‘Mona, you can tell me! Listen, you can confide in me completely.’ I kissed her tears. ‘Don’t cry, Mona,’ I pleaded. ‘I can’t stand it, seeing you cry.’

“ ‘I don’t doubt you, Quinn,’ she said. She sat up in the bed, and I sat with her. ‘I’m not sure Ophelia actually cries in the play, does she? Maybe crying is what keeps people from going mad. It’s just that there are things that can’t be told,’ she went on, ‘and there are things that nobody can do anything about.’

“ ‘It’s always been my way to tell,’ I said. ‘That’s why you saw me embracing Goblin. It would have been very easy at a certain age for me to stop embracing Goblin. I could have maybe sent Goblin away to wherever he came from. But I never kept him a secret. There is a ghost who haunts me too, and then there is a stranger, the man who beat me up and put me in Mayfair Medical. I just let these things come out. I believe we have to do that.’

“I handed her the paper tissues from the bedside table. I took another and wiped at her tears.

“ ‘I know I’m going to marry you, Mona,’ I said suddenly. ‘I know it. I know it’s my destiny.’

“ ‘Quinn,’ she said, wiping her eyes, ‘that isn’t going to happen. We can have a little while, talk to each other, be with each other like this, but we can’t ever really be together.’

“ ‘But why?’ I demanded. I knew that if I lost her I would regret it always. I thought that Goblin knew it. That’s why Goblin had gone away with no argument. He knew this was too strong, and he hadn’t said a word to me.

“Yet I remembered what Goblin could do now. Goblin could break these windows if he wanted. Goblin had told me that he liked being angry. Could I tell Mona that? Should I tell anyone that? I felt a twinge of my panic, and I hated it as unmanly. With Mona, I wanted to be manly.