That next visit he told Tooms of Grace’s dancing, from sauter to tourner, glisser to élancer. He spoke to the heavy sheet, had the ear of the other men, who took to peppering him with questions about her, his words bringing color to their day. Tooms did not appear, so Patch slipped a copy of “The Raven” through his bars, the letter inside almost as thick as the book itself. He no longer begged or asked, instead wrote a little of his hopes for the rest of his own life, stating he would not get to watch his daughter grow up, to become much like the woman her mother was.
Patch sat on the concrete, his back to the bars.
The other men lost interest.
“I was sorry about your mother. I never told you that. But I was sorry.”
Patch did not turn toward the voice, just felt Tooms, his back against the same bars as they faced away from each other.
“She tried her best,” Patch said.
“I don’t doubt that, Joseph.”
“Why do some people fall so short?”
“It depends what you measure against.”
At the distant end Patch watched a rat scurry. “Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
Patch turned a little and saw the shape of him, the profile of a man he once knew to be kind.
“How did you end up here?” Patch said.
“How long have you got?”
“Longer than you.”
Tooms laughed then.
Patch laughed, too.