Margaret stood at the edge of the yard with her hand over her mouth. She said she had been afraid for her brother, afraid he would be left with nothing, and fear had turned into cruelty without her noticing. Thomas did not make her say more.
He had spent thirty years learning that anger costs poor men more than anyone else, and he saw no reason to start paying it now. He set a chair beside his own and asked her to sit. The neighbors drifted home one by one, quieter than they had come.
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