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man. No one was coming to take me back today. I headed home. When I walked through the door of the Ansonia, a smiling man in uniform held it open for me. A second greeted me by name and held the elevator. I had gone from a prison to a palace, and I could luxuriate in the differences.
    There was a broken spring in the seat of my leather easy chair, so that I had to shift my butt over sideways, but it was the best seat in the house. Looking out on the city, I had not a touch of the claustrophobia that had been haunting me since my release. The weather had turned again. It was stunningly hot, a late-September surprise, and the women on Broadway had responded with shorter skirts and skimpier tops. I considered investing in a pair of binoculars.
    I pulled out my cell phone—my lifeline to this new world of freedom—and started picking up the pieces. My first call was to my father—to check in, give him the number, and assure him I would see him that night.
    Then I made a flurry of calls to old colleagues. Though I was barred by court order from contacting anyone from my old firm, there were plenty of other acquaintances to be renewed. Networking, my parole officer had assured me, was the key to finding some kind of employment.
    Some people would not take my call. I respected that. Others took it and shined me on. Cowards. But a few sounded genuinely glad to hear from me, wished me luck, and promised to keep an ear open for anything that might fit.
    I was going to be a tough fit. Anything but advisory or consulting work in the securities industry was out of the question. I was also specifically prohibited from any position where I would be handling money—a basic requirement for just about any job on Wall Street.
    I was avoiding making the one call that mattered.
    —
    A LESSON LEARNED EARLY in my trading career was “Always do the hard thing first.” Once you get whatever it is out of the way, the rest feels easy and your brain functions better without the distraction. I was having a difficult time applying that discipline to my life.
    I was afraid to make that call. Whatever Angie might have to say, the odds were good that it was going to hurt.
    I finally dialed the number anyway.
    Her mother answered on the third ring—not enough of a delay for me to chicken out and hang up—and as soon as she realized who was calling, her voice went into that shrill effusion that is often mistaken for southern charm. She was so pleased to hear from me. She had missed me. She was so sure that I was good for Angie and it was all so sad about my legal problems, but she was sure it would all be sorted out someday and those men who had hounded me—hounded me, she repeated—would have to accept that they were wrong. She was sure of it. And then she asked after my dear father. All of it came out without a pause, almost without a breath. It was like being smothered in butterflies and molasses.
    “I was hoping to get to talk with Angie,” I said.
    That brought on another tornado of words. She was thrilled to have her little girl around, though she didn’t get to see her as much as she wanted because her Evangeline was so busy, reconnecting with all of her old friends and such, and she could not understand why that girl had felt the need to rent herself a house down to Morgan City while there was plenty of room right there.
    I fought my way through. “Could you give me her number down there?”
    She couldn’t. She would not give out Angie’s number, or her address, without checking with her first.
    “After you-all’s difficulties, it just would not be right, I don’t think,” she whispered, as though speaking of our divorce in a normal tone of voice might have been offensive. “But I will pass on your good wishes and I’m sure she will get right back to you. I will be seeing her this weekend, of course, when she comes up to visit the boy. She comes up every weekend. Without fail. She is such a good mother to that boy.”
    Once a