"Yeah."
"You want me to hate her for you? I can do that for a week. After that I'm going to ask harder questions."
Reggie almost smiled. "Give me the week."
"She isn't a monster," Reggie said, surprising himself. "That's what makes it worse. If she were a monster I could burn the whole thing down and call it justice. She's a person who did a terrible thing for reasons that have my fingerprints on them too."
Cheryl studied him. "You're allowed to be furious without writing her a fair thesis."
"I am furious. I'm also ashamed of how long I used overtime like a personality."
"Both can sit in the room," Cheryl said. "You don't have to pick a chair yet."
Cheryl poured him coffee he did not need. "Where are you sleeping?"
"Couch."
"You can stay here."
He shook his head. "If I leave the house right now, I don't know if I go back. And Scout—" He stopped. "Scout's leash is still by our door. If I take him and go, it becomes a different story. I'm not ready for that story yet."
Cheryl nodded. She understood unfinished things. Her own marriage had ended two years ago with a mediation session and a plant neither of them wanted. She did not offer slogans.
"Call me every day," she said. "Even if you just say you're alive."
"I will."
Before he left Cheryl's driveway she said, "One more thing. Don't turn Scout into your only friend. Dogs are faithful. They also can't tell you when you're rehearsing bitterness into a personality."
"I'll call you," he said.