No one comes out of a thing like that whole.

But he came out standing, and he came out honest, and he came out free, and he set about rebuilding a life with the quiet determination of a man who has had a second chance he never expected and does not intend to waste.

He took a modest, legitimate job at a small logistics firm — back to the beginning, back to clean books — and he found a small apartment not far from where Lily and I would end up.

We had drifted, Jim and I, in the years of my marriage — Julian had a way of absorbing my time and my attention that left little over for a younger brother, and I see now that the drift had served Julian’s purposes, had kept the two people who loved each other most from comparing notes.