Her smile was mocking and she rolled her eyes. “You are such a horse’s ass.”

“Maybe so, but I’m an honorable man. I’ll take full responsibility. You can’t condemn me for one lapse in judgment—”

“One lapse? Perhaps along with everything else, you’re forgetting your previous DUI.”

“That was years ago. The whole thing was dumb and you know it. The cop pulled me over because the tag on my license plate was expired. The guy was a moron. You said so yourself.”

“Not so much of a moron he didn’t smell whiskey on your breath and haul you off to jail. I was the one who bailed you out. Because of you, the social worker nearly tossed out our application to adopt—”

“Fine. All right. I did that, Your Honor. I’m guilty as charged. I’ve apologized a hundred times, but you keep bringing it up. The point is, nothing came of it. No harm, no foul . . .”

She got up and reached for her coat. “Tell the judge ‘No harm, no foul’ at your arraignment. That ought to be good for a laugh.”

The rest of the day went by in a blur. He feigned more pain than he felt, just to get more medication. God bless Percocet, his new best friend. He picked at his supper tray, then flipped from channel to channel on the TV set, too restless to focus. He ran through the confrontation with Carolyn a hundred times. What he hadn’t dared confess, for fear of her heaping even more venom on him, was that he actually felt nothing one way or the other. How could he regret consequences when the before and the after and the in-between were gone?

At 9:00 P.M. he woke with a start, unaware that he’d fallen asleep. He heard footsteps in the hall and turned to the door expecting to catch sight of Blake Barrigan. He’d never had much use for the guy, but their wives were friends and he was sorely in need of a friend himself just now. Barrigan, like most doctors, was capable of keeping judgment at bay, appearing sympathetic whether he felt that way or not.