An old friend broke his silence of a month, calling me on this rainy Friday afternoon. After a few moments of small talk about our upcoming biopsies and other medical procedures, the concomitants of living to the ripe old age we have reached, he came to the point of his call.

“I’m not going to be responsible for trying to fix this,” he said. “I’ve done everything I can. I want to be friends.”

So you’re not going to take responsibility for your own actions this last year and a half?

“Don’t put words in my mouth, that’s not what I said,” he said, saying it all. “We all did things to each other,” he began.

I haven’t lied to you once in all the years we’ve known each other. Every time you got upset in the last year and a half I behaved like your friend, heard you out and calmed you. You have never answered a single question that I’ve asked in the last 15 months.

“And I’m done with being questioned,” he said. “I guess I got my answer.”

I offered one last slightly acerbic rejoinder, which, under the circumstances, I thought was pretty good.

“I’m going to hang up now,” he said, as I disconnected the call.