But now his mother was saying that one of those boys was dead, and Fyodor didn’t know what to make of it, except that all his life he’d gone around with a soft piece of hurt just below his ribs, where he stored whatever disappointment or sadness he felt at his father and his brothers not trying to know him. It was not sharp. It was not hard. But it was a persistent, soft ache, like a sore gum through which a tooth threatened to rupture.
