"Obviously, Mr. Howard, you've already found the root of the problem—the turning point in your relationship with Tony didn't occur during your period of alcohol addiction. It had appeared much earlier."
Schiller concluded. When Howard looked at him again, his expression was somewhat unfocused, no longer as intent as before, as though he was listening while also sinking into his memories.
Schiller did not pull him out of them, instead asking, "Then think carefully. When did the length of time you and Tony could focus on each other first suffer a cliff-like drop?"
"A cliff-like drop?" Howard seemed not to understand the term, so Schiller explained further:
"As you said, for a long time, Tony was your emotional anchor. You hoped the happy times you spent with him would never end. So when did you first take the initiative to end them?"
Howard froze for a moment. Then, his eyes gradually regained their light. Clearly, he had recalled a specific scene. He slowly said, "...The first time we played marbles."
Howard sighed softly and said, "That day, his mother had put away all his toys. We had nothing to play with, so we found a few marbles in the corner under the bed."
"They were actually things I played with as a child. I didn't think Tony would like them, so I casually taught him how to shoot marbles. But he did it very well—he never missed."
"But what surprised me was that he wasn't satisfied with simply shooting them in a straight line. He arranged more than a dozen ordinary marbles into a complicated pattern, making them collide one after another until the final marble rolled to its target."
"I was truly stunned. You have no idea how complicated the pattern he designed was. And without any practice at