Victor watches me for a moment longer, then says, "You want to know more about Camilla. Rachel's childhood. Is that right?"

  I notice how he's bothering with the question mark, and I wrinkle my forehead. "I mean, everything from that side of the family is a total question mark, dude. Mostly because of you. The least you can do is fill me in on what my parents won't tell me. You know, if recompense is a thing you care about."

  "Recompense?" He asks, sounding the word out.

  "Recom... You know, compensation. Making up for lost time. Stuff like that," I clarify, immediately feeling self-conscious about being raised by a librarian.

  Victor's face remains impassive. "Not sure stories make up for anything. But I can tell you what happened."

  He leans back slightly in his chair, as if settling in for a longer conversation. Coal has made himself comfortable on my lap, while Box has retreated to a spot near Victor's feet, watching us both with his/her unblinking yellow eyes.

  "Met Camilla at a bar called Murphy's on Frankford Avenue. Don't know if it's still there." His eyes drift toward the window, though the curtains are still closed. "I got into a fight with a guy who was bothering her. Didn't know her then. Just didn't like the guy."

  "So you were what, her knight in shining armor?" I can't keep the skepticism out of my voice.

  Victor makes that sound again - not quite a laugh, more like air escaping from a tire. "No. I just liked fighting back then. The guy was annoying me, and I hit him. Camilla thought that was interesting." He says this last word with a slight emphasis, suggesting he finds her assessment puzzling even now. "Women sometimes like dangerous men. Until they don't."

  "So it was like, love at first sight?" I ask, trying to imagine my grandmother falling for this man.

  "Not love," Victor corrects, as if I've made a technical error. "Convenience. Attraction. She thought she could fix me." His mouth twitches. "I liked having someone who handled the parts of life I couldn't. Bills. Birthday cards. Christmas presents. Meeting the neighbors." He shrugs. "I worked at a warehouse then. So I never really had to get good at talking to people. She helped me... minimize my amount of bar fights."

  "And then what happened?"

  "We lived together, had David. Four years later, had Rachel." He recites this like he's reading items off a grocery list. "Camilla wanted to get married, I wasn't interested, so we didn't. She had better insurance than me, didn't need me as a leech on the belly. Our lives were very separate. I biked, she did whatever it was her job was. I never asked too much. Maybe I knew at some point, but I don't now."

  I try to picture this version of Victor - a warehouse worker with a motorcycle and a bad attitude, living with Camilla and two small children. It's hard to reconcile with the emotionless old man sitting across from me.

  "Were you... happy?" I ask, not even sure why I'm asking. What do I care if he was happy?

  Victor considers this question longer than I expect. "Sometimes," he finally says. "When things were quiet. When the kids weren't crying. When Camilla wasn't trying to make me go to neighborhood cookouts." He looks at me directly. "I'm just not made for family life."

  "Why not?" I press. "What was so hard about being part of a family?"

  "Why are you asking so many questions?" He asks back. For a second, I feel the tiniest flicker, like a trapped fly or a mosquito or something, in my chest - am I going to see it? What R-- what my Mom got to see? But, no, there's no anger on his face. He genuinely just wants to know.

  I fold my arms over my chest. "I've met you exactly twice. I get the feeling there's not going to be a third time, so I'm scraping off as much information from you as I can before you vamoose. Like a fish scraping lichen or whatever. It's what I do."

  "You some kind of detective?" He asks. Then, he does something I'd never expect from him, based on my limited knowledge. He grins. Full, teeth locked in a row, lips peeling back, a ha-ha funny kind of grin.

  "Considering a career in investigative journalism. The healing makes it really hard to kill me for whistleblowing," I joke back.

  His lips shut again, and his face almost instantly slides back into neutral. "Sure. I'll bite. Expectations. Emotions. Compromise." He ticks these off on his fingers. "People want things from you all the time. They want you to do things, or feel a certain thing, or say certain things or say them in a certain way. Be happy that your kid got a good grade. Be disappointed that they got in trouble. Be nice to the neighbors." He shakes his head slightly. "I could fake it for a while, but it was too much, and I just kept getting angrier on the inside. Then, I guess one day my body decided it had enough, and I blew that last gasket."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "You got so angry you had a stroke?" I interrupt.

  "I don't know. I'm not a doctor," he answers just as fast, as if he's heard this question before. "I just couldn't fake it anymore after that. I tried, but it was too much. Couldn't walk and chew bubblegum, as they'd say as a figure of speech."

  "So you just left?" I can't keep the accusation out of my voice. "You decided it was too hard and walked away?"

  "Not right away. Stayed for six more years after the stroke." He says this like it deserves some kind of credit. "Tried to make it work. But David was always pushing back. Always breaking rules. Always making Camilla cry. And Rachel..." He pauses. "Rachel was afraid all the time. Camilla started looking at me different. Like I was something broken she couldn't fix."

  "So you left."

  "Yes. I got my trucking license, got hired, and then gave Camilla every dollar I could afford to lose and left." He states this simply, as if abandoning his family was as unremarkable as changing jobs.

  "Did you ever try to change?" I ask. "To be better? For them?"

  "Better how?" He sounds genuinely confused.

  "I don't know. Less threatening? More..." I struggle to find the right word. "More normal?"

  "Tried that. After the stroke. When the doctors said I should work on my temper. Tried the counting. Tried the breathing. Tried the walking away." He shakes his head. "No, I think I was just born like this. Maybe in another time and place I'd be different. But I think at that point I was stuck."

  I think about what he's saying - that he actually did try to change his behavior, at least for a while. That he recognized something was wrong with how he was acting. It doesn't excuse anything, but it's more self-awareness than I expected.

  "So when did you figure out what you were?" I ask. "That you were..." I hesitate to say the word.

  "A sociopath?" Victor supplies, without any apparent discomfort. "Heard it on the radio. Maybe ten years ago. Late night program about psychology. Described the symptoms. Made sense." He shrugs. "Didn't have a name for it before. Just knew I was different."

  "And that didn't... bother you? Finding out there was a name for it?"

  "Why would it? Doesn't change anything. Just explains things." He taps his fingers on the arm of the chair. "Makes sense of why family life didn't work. Why trucking does."

  "So becoming a trucker was like... a solution? For you?"

  "Yes." For the first time, I see something like satisfaction cross his face. "Good job for someone like me. Long hours alone. Clear rules. Go here, pick this up, take it there. No one expecting me to smile or make small talk. Just do the job." He nods to himself. "Should have done it sooner. Like warehousing, but better."

  We sit in silence for a moment. Coal has started purring in my lap, steadily vibrating against my legs. I stroke his fur absently, trying to process everything Victor's telling me.

  "You know," I say finally, "you told me that police officers taught you to say 'please' to avoid getting into fights."

  "Yes."

  "Did you ever think about applying that idea to your whole life? Not just to avoid fights, but to... I don't know, make things easier with people in general? I throw fists a lot, but, you know... I always try to get someone to stand down first."

  Victor tilts his head, studying me with those flat gray eyes. "Interesting thought," he says, sounding like he actually means it.

  "That's basically what everyone does all the time," I point out. "It's called being polite."

  "Hm." He seems to actually be considering this. "Might have worked with Camilla. Probably not with David. He saw through things like that."

  "What about with Mom?"

  Victor's expression shifts subtly. The inner corners of his eyes shift downward. His cheeks fall, just for a moment. "I made tactical errors with Rachel. In general, really. If I had a second chance I would've changed my approach."

  "Tactical errors?" I repeat, incredulous. "That's what you call threatening your family?"

  "Yes." He looks down at his hands. "It was tactically advantageous to get people to do what I want in the short term. Whatever that word is for the long term version, that's where it went bad."

  I try to avoid pinching the bridge of my nose. "Strategic errors. You won the battle, but lost the war. On... what, exactly?"

  "Was trying to build safe kids, who followed the rules and were able to be independent." He meets my eyes again. "If they were able to cook and clean for themselves, they wouldn't need to rely on me, and I could leave faster. I made sure they knew that much. But I could've done it differently. I'm not slow. I've had nothing but thinking time for almost forty years."

  I'm not sure how to respond to this. It's not an apology - not even close. But it's an acknowledgment that he recognizes, at least intellectually, that his approach was flawed. The television has been on this whole time, volume low, playing some game show I don't recognize. Victor glances at it, then back at me. I try not to let my jaw hang open.

  "You want to watch TV for a while?" he asks, as if we've just been having a normal conversation about the weather.

  "Uh, sure." I'm thrown by the sudden change of topic, but also relieved for the break from intense conversation.

  Victor hands me the remote. "You pick."

  I flip through channels until I find a cooking competition show. Victor doesn't comment on my choice, just settles back in his chair to watch. Coal remains on my lap, occasionally stretching or shifting position. Box eventually climbs onto the bed and curls up on the pillow.

  We sit in silence for about fifteen minutes, watching chefs frantically assemble complicated desserts against a timer. It's strangely peaceful, in a weird way. No expectations, no more difficult questions, just the mindless entertainment of the show and the warm weight of the cat on my lap.