And Torsten could not stop talking.

That was the gift my patience kept collecting.

Every afternoon he poured my whiskey and settled into my chair and explained to me, expansively, how the world worked — how some men led and some men served, how he’d had to step up in my absence, how the company had needed a real hand at the wheel.

He mistook my quiet for an audience.

He thought I was sitting there absorbing his wisdom, the lesser brother finally learning his place, and so he kept filling the silence with confessions he did not know were confessions, each one landing in the same listening house, each one another thread for Priya to pull.

A man who believes he has already won stops guarding his mouth.