Hazeline finds him fetal on the ground in his quarters, halfway under his bunk, babbling.

 

When she lies down beside him he is slow to turn. He looks so different without his cap. Face sogged, fists bloodied, he is perfumed in shame,and his face is not the face of a man but the immutable face of a boy, forever nervous, forever afraid of himself and the world around him.

 

His babbling unravels:        he was hurting her...     

 

Taking hold of him the way mother took hold of her the day she told her the news, he continues to try and speak, as though he is choked on needles it is so painful to expel those words. So she hushes him, holding   t   i   g   h   t,    t i g h t e r , tighter still, until all language is obliterated, their clumsy alphabets swallowed by the sound of sirens coming to sing the long, indissoluble night into passing.