What the Bread Was For

He had wanted to feel like the wronged party, so he refused to check the facts.

He had wanted comfort, so he chose the lie.

His inner life had always been the thing that mattered most to him, and other people had been characters in the story of his grievance.

And what seven years had slowly taught him — what Marlowe was, gently, confirming he had learned — was the opposite: that love is mostly restraint.

That the deepest thing you can do for a person you have hurt is to want something badly and not take it, because they have not offered it.

He had spent four years taking.