Jude’s, out into the cold bright afternoon, carrying an old woman’s letter and an old woman’s love and a check that was about to give me back the only thing I had left in the world worth having.

I did not feel triumphant, walking out into that afternoon, though I suppose by any external measure I had just won an enormous victory.

I felt hollowed out and full at the same time, the way you feel after weeping for a long while, scoured and quiet.

Six words to Arthur had been all I had in me, and I did not regret their brevity; there was nothing else worth spending on him.

What I felt, standing on the steps of St.