“I made the mistake of not listening once, with dire consequences. I will not make it again.”

Those shadows—the deep shadows over his face and being. I could picture him as he was that night in the cemetery, standing hunch-shouldered before a grave. We continued walking toward the light and a more open area ahead. “What was her name?”

“Dahlia.”

“Friend?”

“Wife.”

The last word jolted me into silence, an ache in my soul. “I’m so sorry,” I said at last.

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” He reached his hand behind his neck, looking away.

Broken. That’s what he was. A broken and overlooked instrument capable of producing great beauty, like the abandoned Broadwood. Like the patients of Hurstwell. I’d already seen glimpses of his nature—bending low to the least of us, rich in kindness, great in strength that was spent on lost causes. Yet something had broken him. What would it take to brush the dust off his spirit and repair it to full working order?

If we were not in an asylum, not doctor and patient, I might have slipped my hand into his just to let him feel the reassurance of it, my wordless support. As it was, I balled my hand up and his hung alone at his side.

“You see a bit of her in every patient, don’t you?”

He flinched, as if I’d wandered too far into a place no one had ever gone. His jaw worked, his face troubled.

My voice was low. “You’ve an unusual way with them—the patients, that is. I should have known there was a reason.”

“I simply perform the duties of my position.”

I shook my head. “It’s more. You give people permission to be themselves—whatever odd collection of cracks and fissures and paint smears they have. There’s true freedom in that.” A few more paces, and I looked up at him. “It’s a rare and beautiful thing to see potential in these people, but you see more—you see value.”

He watched my face, as if to reason out my meaning. I couldn’t tell if my words bothered or pleased him. “And you?” He faced forward again. “What is your reason?”

“Bad luck.”

“I mean, the way you . . . see people. See inside and recognize the humanity there.”

A smile tipped my mouth. “Still bad luck.” I told him then what it was to live with Father, to grow weak and forcibly submissive under the weight of another’s control, and to endure the gnawing ache of missing someone you’d never met.