Chapter 24 — The Long Work

Desmond left the corporate job he’d held for ten years and took two hard manual jobs to earn as much as he could.

He stopped drinking.

He moved back into his grandmother’s old house and taught himself, badly at first, to cook a real meal.

The change was total, and he made it without announcement or audience, which was itself the point.

The old Desmond would have wanted the transformation witnessed — would have wanted Marlowe to see him quitting drinking, working himself to exhaustion, becoming a better man, so that his effort could be entered into evidence and credited to his account.