TWENTY-EIGHT
IF I’D BEEN PAYING CLOSER attention I might have seen it coming. I might have sensed it in the dulling of his sharp tongue or the sudden disappearance of his chronic impatience. He’d stopped checking his watch so obsessively when we spoke. I’d assumed that this meant that he’d stopped trying to graft his Toronto template onto Moose Factory. I couldn’t decide whether the peace he’d made with it signalled a willingness to yield to the pace of life on the island or was merely evidence that he could be worn down. I was wrong on both counts.
It hadn’t occurred to me that I might be receiving special treatment. In my defense he hadn’t shown the slightest hint of affection toward anyone in the hospital. He held the world in a kind of universal contempt to keep it at a safe distance
