“Because the thing about desire and regret, when you’ve harmed someone and then have years to shred it and play it over time and again—the thing is you fail to comprehend the origin of that initial episode. You attach layers of meaning to it and feel it was an aberration, some moment of yourself out of yourself. That is what regret does. It allows you to live with yourself. You know what they say—all men in prison are innocent? It’s not that they are and it’s not even that they truly believe they are; it’s that they grow to understand themselves in such a way as to see that moment, the trigger that set them off in the first place, that got them to where they are, they see that as something separate from themselves. They come to believe, to know, that ever again their choice would be a different one. Not only in the past but in the future. Because they cannot allow the truth.

“The truth, Foster Pelham, is very simple. The nature of man is divided. And because we cannot live in the light we refuse to see the dark surrounding us. Until it owns us.

“So he sat up in that locked house the remainder of the afternoon. Because it was as if time had gone away. It was just hours of the day. Twenty-five years. More than that. He had no regret you see, no sorrow or remorse. All that was a confection he’d built around himself over the years. So he could live to that day. Because it was not love you see. What he thought it had been. There was terrible anger in it. Elemental is the word comes to mind. Possession is another one. To possess her in a way she would never be able to deny. That she could walk away from but would follow her, always. Yes, always.

“Now you can sit there looking at me like I’m some sort of monster. I don’t mind it one bit. You don’t know any better. But it is something that every man feels, at least once in his life. If he is lucky. That’s right. Lucky. That sort of passion. Beyond caring about anything. Any goddamn thing at all.

“So he did not move but sat in this chair right here. Waiting. For the first time in twenty-five years just waiting. Not thinking at all. Only a man, every bit and morsel of him. Roused, unstoppable. Needing nothing. Not food, not a drink of water, nothing at all. Not even that fucking cane. Which he laid up flat on the table and left there. So when late afternoon that knock at the door he knew was coming came he left that cane, and walked straight and steady and thoughtless as if he was fourteen years old again, down to the door. Where he could see her through the glass, her face turned down, her shoulder pressed close to the door. Waiting for him. He stopped some feet away. He knew she’d heard him coming but he did not care. He wanted to see her there. Waiting.