You only did to me, what I had done to you. I am truly sorry about that, if that makes any difference.”“What, saying your sorry should make it all...better?” A bit of edge had crept into her voice.“No, I can never undo what I did to you. It was thoughtless and cruel, and you deserved better.”She was silent as she stared at him. She expected him to speak again but he didn’t. He had a strange look in his eyes. She had never seen that look in anyone else’s eyes. She was not sure what it was. He had. “I will,” he said.****He gazed at the ruins of his best friend through the opaque window of the sequestered room. The psyche ward had a different persona than did the other sections of the institution, he thought.He sure was thin. Probably not eating. He could afford to eat, he knew. He’d checked up on the man surreptitiously over the last many years when opportunities to do so made sense, even Claire didn’t know about that effort on his part.The sonovabitch had his disability from Social. The ribbon unraveled, and she pulled off the top, and gasped with surprise. ‘Oh my,’ she exclaimed, as she gingerly lifted the ocelot fur coat out of the box, ‘this must have cost thousands?’ She held the soft, luxurious fur up against her cheek. It was definitely the real McCoy! She had never, in her wildest dreams, thought she would ever own a coat as expensive as this. She hurried over to the full length mirror, and slipped it on. -oOo- ‘Arnie, darling, it’s the most beautiful gift anyone. His composure had been broken in some way. His attention strayed constantly. The younger brother drew him back to the orbit of his family with whispered comments that earned him a series of pokes from the father, who had to reach impatiently across a small girl. Jesse twisted once and looked up to the balcony and then turned his attention back to the progress of the service. The contrast between the well dressed Jesse below and the scruffy boy nearby was stark. Graham tried to lose himself in.