“They both died within the same year, and home was taken. Gone. I’ve not been back since. Couldn’t bear it, I think, to see others living in our places. It was such a wrench. To be ripped away. To scramble for earth and air. To find some of that sense in a person only to lose it again. I— I can’t bear it, Mr. Pierce. Can’t bear to think of it. The pain of losing home. And so, knowing the acute sense of loss, how can I take this man’s home? However horrible he may be. However undeserving of mercy.
