“It’s a mistake to make this personal,” he said.

“It was personal the night she came up my porch steps in her socks.”

He said nothing to that.

Then, quiet, like an afterthought he had been holding: “Tell Claire I asked after her.”

I walked back to the truck and started it and pulled out, and I did not look in the mirror until the road bent at the Hollins place.

He was still on the porch with one hand on his tie.