"How long?" he said.
She did not pretend not to understand. She had stopped pretending things in September of 1980; it was one of the conditions. But she took her hand out of her pocket.
"Three years," she said. "Two months. And some days."
He nodded slowly. He looked down at the pie plate, at the scraped place where the slice had been, and he said, mostly to himself, "Three years."
"How'd you know?"
"She does that." He touched his own coat over the breast, where a pocket would be. "Jolynn. Keeps one of them chips in her shirt and puts her thumb on it. Like a Catholic with the beads. I seen her do it a hundred times since she come out, standing in the kitchen. Talking on the phone. Somebody says something hard to her and the hand goes in." He looked up at Coralee. "And you poured that coffee like she pours it. Like it's the only thing in the world. Like you was afraid to look anywhere else."
Coralee did not know what to say. She said, "How long has she got?"
"Hundred and four days. Hundred and five, now. It's past midnight." He did not have to think about it. He knew the number the way she knew hers.
"That's good. That's real good. The first hundred are the worst."
"Are they." It was not a question, the way he said it. He was still looking at her, and his eyes had a kind of hunger in them that had nothing to do with the pie. "I never seen one get to three years," he said. "You know that? Sixty-seven years old. Worked underground thirty-one of them in Ruth and then in the pit, and then at the smelter in McGill, and I seen every kind of drunk God makes. Seen men go to the hospital in Ely with the shakes so bad they had to tie 'em down, and come out swearing on their mothers, and be back on a stool at the Bank Club in six weeks. I never seen one make three years. Not one." He shook his head. "I wanted to look at you. That's all. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare."
"That's all right."