Sawyer had worked active, outside jobs all his life, and suddenly he could do nothing. It seemed to be the idleness, more than the brain damage, that made him crazy. He couldn’t read, because the words came out scrambled, and he could barely sit still to try. He phoned me three times a day. My secretary stopped putting his calls through, so he came to the office, on foot because they wouldn’t let him drive. He was a big, graying, blond-bearded man, my father’s age, muscular but getting fat without his work. He treated me like a daughter, scolding and cajoling me. He wanted to sue, demanded to sue. His wife was sick of his moping at the house, and his friends had been the men he’d worked with; he’d lost everything he liked about his life. I knew workers’ comp and I tried to explain: he’d gotten what he was going to get. There was nothing more I could do for him.

Finally I found a tort lawyer in Billings, four hours east, who was willing to give him another opinion. I had to be in Bozeman anyway, halfway there, so I drove over and met Sawyer and his wife at the lawyer’s office. I didn’t think Sawyer, frustrated and hair-triggered as he was, should be making his case alone, with his wife jumping in and correcting him. The lawyer was a thin man in a dark suit and a big leather chair. There were antelope heads on the walls, bear claws as bookends. We explained the situation. The lawyer said, “You have no tort claim.”

Sawyer said, “Okay.”

I thought, That’s what it’s like to be a man. If I were a man I could explain the law and people would listen and say, “Okay.” It would be so restful.

We went back outside. The lawyer’s office had a view of the cliffs. We’d been in Billings fifteen minutes and had nothing to do but drive home. My client shook my hand, and his wife, a small, curly-haired woman who had been pretty once, gave me a quick motherly hug. She smelled like roses and cigarettes. When I stopped at the mall for a sandwich, they pulled up in the parking space next to mine. Sawyer got out of the car screaming at his wife about her fucking attitude, grabbed his jacket from the seat and slammed the door.

He said, “I’m going in your car.” His wife peeled out of the lot and turned toward the highway.