Kneeling by her, he put his hand on her shoulder. This time she did not try to pull away. “I’m sorry,” he said. And he meant it. “For pushing you.” I called your bluff, he said to himself, and it was not a bluff. Okay; you won. I give up. From now on it’s whatever you want. Name it. He thought, Just make it brief, for God’s sake. Let me out of this as quickly as you possibly can. He had an intuition that it would not be soon.
