“You know that I’ve heard about her background. She wants to go on. She came to see me, didn’t she? She wants this thing resolved. It’s all to the good and you know it.”

“It would be, if the truth were not something that would hang over her head for the rest of her life. She takes pride in her understanding of men. You can see how she would come to that. You struck the right chord in her. Even Phyllis Reynolds saw the rapport between you. You’ve been getting the best that Norma has to offer, so don’t think that you know her. She could love you, Joe. You could solve her problems.” He leaned in. “But you know that, don’t you?”

Leland stayed still. There was no point to trying to lie.

“People with Norma’s problems don’t actually change, Joe. When they’ve done their best, worked their hardest, they’ve only gained a partial kind of control—never complete, never one hundred percent mastery of themselves. They’d be the first to tell you, if they really trusted you.”

“The way she trusts you, Wendell?” He went for the keys to the desk.

“You listen to me!” His face was flushed. “You hear what it’s like, fighting genuinely irresistible urges. You couldn’t know what compulsion is. She had a boyfriend who taught at the University here—did she tell you about him?

“She mentioned him.”

“Mentioned him. She received a letter from him after Colin died. It was all she could do to keep from inviting him back to Port Smith. She had never cared very much for him, but she couldn’t think. She fixed on ‘the missed opportunity,’ she called it. It took her weeks to stop fantasizing and realize that she was looking for a place to hide. You should know what a battle it is for people like her when the pressure is on. You have one in your own family—”

“That’s enough—”