That surprised me.

After six years of a man whose kindness had been a leash, I had expected to flinch at any generosity, to spend the night braced for the bill.

But Cormac had shown me to the room, set a glass of water on the nightstand, told me the bathroom was down the hall and that the dog snored, and then he had gone to bed himself, and asked nothing, and expected nothing, and the not-asking was its own strange language I had forgotten how to read.

In the morning he was already up, coffee made, sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper and the dog’s head on his knee.

He didn’t ask me how I’d slept or how I was feeling or any of the questions that require you to perform an answer.

He just nodded at the coffee and said the appointment in Boston was in nine days, and that his sister would see me, and that I could take his truck or he could drive me, whichever I preferred, and that either way I should eat something first because it was a long road.