I Let a Homeless Man Stay One Night and Came Home to a Different Apartment

of the cold, a shower, a meal. That in the morning I had to be at work by seven and my son had school, and he would need to be gone by the time we left.

He looked at me for a long moment. He had steady eyes, the kind that belong to someone who has had time to think clearly and has done a lot of it. He said his name was Derek.

He said: “I don’t want to continue reading …