It is a curious thing to understand, for I had certainly never liked the man, though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart. Those words shook me—every grief in me, layer after layer. I cried wholeheartedly. I couldn’t seem to help myself. My body would do nothing else. Grief pulled from my toes and my fingers and burned in my chest. These deaths, these unexpected cliffs in my life, falling one after the other. I cried until I was utterly
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