He glanced down. He was wearing it. He had not even noticed. With careful fingers he loosened the knot, pulled it free, and folded it into the glove compartment, where it lay curled and silent, like something shed.

A Bear at the Door

The house on Maple Hollow Road looked different in the late afternoon. The light had gone gold and slanted, and it picked out every fleck of the green porch paint and the dark, glossy leaves of the hydrangeas. Brandon parked across the street and sat looking at it for ten full minutes, rehearsing sentences he knew he would not use.

He had brought nothing. No flowers, no gift. He had considered it and decided that anything he carried would be a kind of bribe. He wore a plain gray shirt, no tie, and his hands felt strange without a clipboard or a phone. He had turned the phone off and left it in the glove compartment on top of the blue silk.

He crossed the street. He climbed the porch steps. He raised his fist to knock.

The door opened before he touched it.

The man in the doorway was not Walter. He was built like a vending machine, with a neck as thick as Brandon's thigh and a gray buzz cut and a face that looked as if it had been carved from a block of salt. He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up over forearms mapped in scars. He folded his arms and looked down at Brandon without any expression whatever.

"You're him," said Eddie Moreno.

"Yes, sir."

"The salesman."

"Yes."

"The one with the mouth."

Brandon swallowed. "I suppose so."

"Don't suppose. Either you are or you aren't."

"I am." He made himself hold the man's gaze. "I'm Brandon Pryce. I know I'm not welcome. I know Mr. Doyle told me to stay away. I came to say I'm sorry. I'll say it on the porch, and then I'll go. I won't ask him for anything."

Eddie said nothing. A bird sang in the maple down the street. Somewhere inside the house, a kettle began its long thin whistle.

"I spent thirty-six years on the line," Eddie said at last. "You know what that teaches a man? You can tell what someone is by how they act when they're caught. Some run. Some lie. Some get angry. Very few of them show up on your front porch with their hands empty."

"I'd have brought something, but—"

"I'm not complaining." Eddie's heavy brow shifted by a quarter inch. "I'm saying I wasn't expecting it."

"Eddie?" called a voice from within, mild and curious. "Who is it?"

Eddie turned his head, and for the first time, Brandon saw his face soften, just slightly, around the eyes. "It's the boy, Walt."

A long pause. Then footsteps, slow ones, and the door swung wider.

Walter stood behind his friend in his oatmeal cardigan, with a dish towel over his shoulder and the little brass pin shining against the wool. He looked at Brandon, and Brandon looked at him, and in the stillness of that gold afternoon every prepared sentence went out of his head.

"Mr. Hayes," he said.

"Mr. Pryce."

"I'm so sorry."

It came out cracked and thin, nothing like the speech he had built. He felt his face begin to crumple and fought it. "I'm sorry for what I said. I'm sorry for the way I said it. I didn't know who you were, and I know that's no excuse, because it shouldn't have mattered. You were a person standing in a room. You deserved to be treated like one."

Walter did not speak. His expression did not change.

"I'm not here to be forgiven," Brandon went on, the words tumbling now. "I don't think I've earned it. I just needed to say it to your face. I needed you to know that I know what I did. That's all. I'll go."

He turned toward the steps.

"Mr. Pryce," said Walter. "Would you like some tea?"

Brandon stopped.

"I've got a kettle going. And Eddie hasn't had his afternoon cookie. It's rude to leave a man's porch just as the water's boiling."

Behind him, Eddie let out a long-suffering sigh and stepped back from the door. "One condition," he said. "You sit where I can see you."

Tea and a Confession

They sat in the kitchen. Walter poured tea into three mugs while Eddie planted himself against the counter like a gargoyle. Brandon accepted his cup with both hands and felt, absurdly, as if he had been handed something fragile.

"Now," said Walter, settling into his chair. "You said you needed me to know you understood what you did. Tell me what that is."