“Thank you,” he said to the bartender. Then he steered me away from the bar with his firm doctor’s hand and said, “Let’s take a little walk.” He led me through the kitchen and out into the garage, where graying sunlight stretched dusty rectangles on the floor. He released me into the emptiness, then sat on the steps with a grunt and a flourish. He sipped his drink, then smacked his lips. “Now that’s a good friend.”

“Yes,” I said. “It can be.”

I watched him watch me as he put down his drink and lit a cigar.

“I’ve been watching you,” he finally said. “You don’t look good.”

“It’s been a bad day.”

“I’m not talking about today. I’ve been worried about you for years. Just not my place to say, if you follow.”

“What makes today different?” I asked.

He looked at me and puffed blue smoke. “I’ve been married fifty-four years,” he said. “You think I’ve never had that look, like your best friend just kicked you in the balls. It doesn’t take a genius; my wife saw it, too.” He flicked imaginary lint from his pant leg and studied his cigar as he continued. “Now, I can’t do anything about your wife-a marriage is a man’s own business-but there are some things you ought to hear, and I know damn well that no one else in there will tell you.”

Unsure what to say, I balanced my drink on an overturned wheelbarrow and lit a cigarette. The silence stretched out as I fumbled the pack back into my shirt pocket. When I looked up, I saw that shadows filled the doctor’s eyes, which made me strangely sad. He had warm eyes; always had.

“Your father was the biggest asshole I ever met,” he said, then pulled on his cigar as if he’d commented on the weather. I said nothing, and after a few seconds the old man continued. “He was a self-centered bastard who wanted to own the whole damn world, but you know that.”

“Yes,” I said, and cleared my throat. “I know that.”

“An easy man to hate, your father, but he would look you in the eyes as he slipped the knife in, if you know what I mean.”

“No.”

“He was honest about his avarice. Other honest men could see that.”

“So?” I asked.

“Am I finished yet?” he asked, and I said nothing. “Then let me talk. There was also Jean. I never liked the way he raised your sister. Seemed like a waste of a perfectly good mind. But we can’t choose our parents, and that’s her bad luck. I’ve watched her, too, and now that Ezra’s dead, I think she’ll be all right.”

A harsh laugh escaped me. “How closely have you watched her?” I asked, thinking that Jean was so far from being all right.

He leaned forward, a sharp glint in his eyes. “Closer than you, I bet,” he said, and the truth of it stung. “I’m not worried about her. It’s you that troubles me.”

“Me?”

“Yes, now shut up. This is what I came out here to tell you. So pay attention. Your father was a big man, with big visions and big dreams. But you, Work, are a better man.”

I felt tears sting my eyes and wished fervently that this man had been my father. There was blunt honesty in his face and in the way he moved his thickened hands, and for a moment I believed him.

“You’re better because you don’t want big things for small reasons. You’re better because you care-about your friends and family, things that are right; you favor your mother that way.” He paused for an instant and nodded. “Don’t choke on Ezra’s burdens, Work. I’m eighty-three years old, old enough to know a thing or two, and the most important is this: Life is goddamn short. Figure out what you want. Be your own man and you’ll be better for it.”

He stood slowly and I heard his joints pop. Ice rattled on glass as he drained his drink.

“Bury your old man, Work, and when you’re ready, we’d love to have you over for dinner. I knew your mother well, God rest her soul, and I’d love to tell you about her happy times. And one last thing-don’t lose any sleep over Barbara. She’s a bitch by nature, not by choice. So don’t be hard on yourself.”

He winked at me and smiled around his cigar. I thanked him for coming, because I didn’t know what else to say; then I closed the door behind him and sat where he had, on wood still warm from his narrow haunches. I sipped ice-watered bourbon, thought about my life, and wished the old man were right about all the things he’d said.

Eventually, my glass ran dry, but this I could fix. My watch showed it was almost five, and as I stood, I thought briefly of Detective Mills. I’d not called her and at the moment didn’t care; all I wanted was that drink. I was in and out of the kitchen without a word, and if that offended people, then too bad. I’d had enough. So I returned to my dank cell to watch the shadows crawl and to drink my bourbon warm.

I stayed in that awful place long enough for the light to dim and the walls to tilt. I was not an angry drunk; I didn’t get weepy and I didn’t figure out a damn thing. My jacket went into a box filled with lawn clippings I’d never emptied and my tie ended up twisted around a nail in the wall, but I kept the rest of my clothes on, which was hard. I wanted to shake things up, break the complacency bowl, and for one crazy moment I pictured myself running naked through the house. I’d chat with my wife’s friends and dare them to pretend, at the next inane social gathering, that it had never happened. And they would-that’s what kept my clothes on. Every last one of them could look me in the eye over drinks or dinner the next week, ask in all earnestness how the practice was doing, and then tell me what a fine funeral it had been.

I wanted to laugh and I wanted to kill somebody.

But I did neither. I went back inside; I mingled and I talked. I kept my clothes on, and if I made an ass of myself, no one said a word to me about it. Eventually, I left, and as I sat in my car, windows down and purple light on me like a second skin, I thanked God for one thing: that, drunk as hell and drowning in faces and words without meaning, I had not uttered the one irretrievable thought that had haunted me. And searching my ruined eyes in the mirror, I acknowledged, to myself at least, that I thought I knew who had killed my father.

Motive. Means. Opportunity.

It was all there if you knew where to look.

But I did not want to look. I never had. So I twisted the mirror up and away. Then I closed my eyes and thought of my sister, and of times that were no less hard for their simplicity.

Are you okay?” I asked Jean.

She nodded, tears dripping off her tiny pointed chin to soak into her white jeans like rain into sand. Her shoulders hunched lower with each sob, until she looked bent and broken, her hair hanging just low enough to cover the top of her face. I pulled my eyes off the little gray teardrop circles, trying not to look at the blood that spread from between her legs. Red and wet, it soaked the new pants she was so proud of, the ones our mother had given her on that morning of her twelfth birthday.

“I called Dad and he said he’d come get us. Soon. I promise. He said so.”

She didn’t say anything and I watched the red stain darken. Without a word, I took off my jacket and spread it across her lap. She looked at me then in a way that made me proud to be her big brother, like I made a difference. I slipped an arm around her shoulders and pretended that I was not half-scared to death.

“I’m sorry,” she said tearfully.

“Everything’s okay,” I told her. “Don’t worry about it.”

We were downtown, at the ice cream parlor. Mom had dropped us off on her way to Charlotte for the afternoon. We had four dollars for ice cream and plans to walk home afterward. I barely knew what a girl’s period was. When I first saw the blood, I thought she might be hurt, and only then did I realize that her eyes had been filling with slow tears for awhile. “Don’t look,” she’d said, and bowed her head to the tears.