To take a dying man’s prescribed pain relief, and pour it out, and refill the bottle with tap water so that he would go on reaching for relief that was no longer there, so that he would suffer and believe it was his illness worsening — that was not neglect, and it was not merely heartless.

It was deliberate.

It required someone to stand in that bedroom, and unscrew that cap, and make a choice, for the sake of a few dollars’ worth of medicine, to leave a man in agony.

I did not let myself feel the full size of it standing there; I could not have kept functioning if I had.

I set it in the cold clear place where a surgeon keeps the things too large to feel in the moment, and I preserved the bottle, and I kept my record, and I let the feeling wait until it could do some good.

It is still waiting, some of it.