All his little dreams as a young man—all those things he would get, and have, and be—were merely means to the end, and the end was personal happiness. Things hadn’t turned out the way he imagined they would, not at all, but he was, nonetheless, quite happy. He worried that he was fooling himself, that he was closing his eyes and declaring loudly that the bars that constrained him were not there at all. Perhaps they were there: were this house, and Elinor, and the pecan orchard across the way, and the levee and the river flowing behind the levee, Miriam making demands on him over the telephone
...more
