The confession on the 911 call was a man in full collapse saying he thought his children had eaten something that disagreed with them, and the dispatcher, working from incomplete information and a hysterical caller, had sent a full response. By the time anyone arrived, Marguerite had confirmed the children were fine and had been at her sister’s house all afternoon.

Desmond was not arrested. He was sedated briefly for acute anxiety and released the same evening. No charges. No armed guard. No life sentence.

What I have not told anyone is what he said to me two weeks later when he finally came to the door. He said he had spent six months trying to work up the nerve to apologize for disappearing after his marriage, and the chocolates were the only language he had found, and when he heard I had given them away he thought I was telling him, without words, that I did not want what he was offering. He cried in my doorway, which I had not seen him do since he was eleven.