“This is why I didn’t get married last year,” she said to him. “I wouldn’t be here to nurse you.” She thought about that for a moment. “Of course, one could make the argument that you wouldn’t be in this situation if not for me. But we’re not going to dwell upon that.”

“I . . . Why do you want me to?” There was a flicker of something in Greta’s look. I couldn’t tell whether it was a flicker of love or regret or meanness, and then she said, “Why wouldn’t I want you to?” Because you hate me, I thought, but I didn’t say it.”

“Lincoln,” Sam had asked him on one of those nights, the summer before their senior year, “do you think we’ll get married some day?”“I hope so,” he’d whispered. He didn’t usually think about it like that, like “married.” He thought about how he never wanted to be without her. About how happy she made him and how he wanted to go on being that happy for the rest of his life. If a wedding could promise him that, he definitely wanted to get married.“Wouldn’t it be romantic,” she said, “to marry your high school sweetheart? When people ask us how we met I’ll say, ‘We met in high school. I saw him, and I just knew.’ And they’ll say, ‘Didn’t youever wonder what it would be like to be with someone else?”

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care, Abby.”“I don’t.” She glared at him, so full of life she almost glowed.“You do.” He kissed the pouting lips lightly. “And I’m going to keep you.”

“I tortured people…” she said. “When it was necessary,” he agreed. “And you killed as well. If this had happened then, Keegan wouldn’t still be alive. But you were never heated about it. You wouldn’t let someone push your buttons. You didn’t even have buttons that could be pushed.”

“You might have thought I’d worry about him, about causing him pain or at least embarrassment. I simply didn’t. I felt the kind of desperation, I think, that cancels the possibility of empathy. That makes you unkind. When I described myself as I was at that time to Daniel, I often said to him, “You wouldn’t have liked me then.”