Even then, he could have stayed on. He could have swallowed his pride and shut his big mouth, and kept his job. But he didn’t.

The second confrontation with McDougal was much nastier, and that was when he had to use every ounce of restraint to hold himself back. He had threatened to ruin McDougal, but the man had just smiled at him. The fact was, David had no proof. All copies of the earlier plans were gone. He had nothing.

The worst part of it was, McDougal was going to win. If he kept it up, not only would he lose the EPC job, he wouldn’t be able to get a job within a thousand miles of a hydro plant, other than janitor. So he had just walked away, his fists clenched, the bile in his throat burning with anger and frustration.

When he got home and told Helen about it, she wanted him to go back and apologize. He wallowed in self-pity, becoming angrier at her than he had ever been in their marriage, all the time knowing that it wasn’t Helen he was upset with and that he shouldn’t take it out on her.

“Your daughter needs you,” she said. “I need you, David. We can work it out. Don’t turn away like this.” And that was when he’d said the thing that had eaten him up inside and was still eating at him long after it had had been forgiven by her, words he’d regretted even as they were coming out his mouth.

“I don’t have the fucking time for you right now.”

She turned away with tears in her eyes. He stood there, aching to take it back, and said nothing, couldn’t say it, couldn’t open his mouth except to utter those few words which had hurt so much.

He went out for a drive to clear his head, and there was the storm. It snuck up on him without warning, and he found himself out on the highway in the middle of gusts so powerful they threatened to send him skidding off the road and over the embankment. He pulled over and the storm started in with a vengeance; the wind rocked the car and heavy snowflakes blew in crazy patterns around and across the windshield. He sat there in this world of white and resolved to make it up to Helen, and to Jessie. His own world was too fragile and precious for such ultimate decisions; he couldn’t afford to make enemies in the business when he was just a junior engineer.