At the door he paused.

“I never really knew who you were.” Lenore shook her head.

“You knew parts of me.

You just decided the parts that didn’t suit you didn’t matter.”

She thought about that exchange for a long time afterward, because it held, in miniature, everything the marriage had been.

He had asked whether he should keep the watch — and even then, even at the end, the question had been about him: his comfort, his guilt, what he was permitted to hold onto.