Longus Quinlan

Longus Quinlan is the counselor Marjorie Devore chooses when the prolonged strain of Burke Devore’s unemployment threatens their marriage. His method is to draw out what the couple cannot yet say plainly, rather than prescribe a repair from outside. That distinction matters: while he helps Burke recognize his withdrawal and reconsider the belief that a lost job means a lost self, Burke keeps his most consequential actions and intentions from him. The sessions make progress possible, but they do not give Quinlan the whole story.

Identity and Introduction

Marjorie arranges the first appointment through the church where she and Burke had met Father Susten eleven years earlier, rather than through state agencies. Burke is surprised that their counselor is a man. Quinlan is described as a heavyset Black man of about forty, wearing a white shirt and dark tie. He rises from behind his desk, smiles amiably, and invites the couple into his office. Burke briefly wonders whether Marjorie knew Quinlan was Black; she gives no visible indication either way. That uncertain glance registers Burke’s watchfulness, while Quinlan’s open manner sets the tone of the meeting.

The office is arranged to keep counselor and clients in view of one another: Quinlan’s desk faces the door, with two chairs angled toward him and positioned so Burke and Marjorie can also see each other. The three form a triangle. Quinlan explains that Father Enver had little information about the couple and that their connection to the church began before his time. The introductory form he calls boilerplate occupies the entire first fifty-minute session. Burke arrives expecting the conversation to reach Marjorie’s affair, but it does not; instead, the couple gives basic personal information and identifies Burke’s nearly two years out of work as the apparent source of their difficulties.

A Counselor Who Does Not Promise a Cure

At the end of that first hour, Quinlan explains that coming to counseling shows a desire to address a problem, but that he cannot solve it for them. His role, as he describes it, is to help them look inward, identify their strengths, and work out what they want from each other and from life. He cautions against assuming that the desired outcome is simply a return to how things used to be. The couple may discover that the old arrangement is not what either of them wants after all. Burke immediately understands the implication: the process could end in their marriage dissolving, and Quinlan might still have done his job.

The sessions are scheduled for Tuesdays. Their insurance still covers them for a time, with Burke and Marjorie responsible for the twenty-percent deductible after the insurer pays. This practical arrangement sits alongside Quinlan’s refusal to offer a guaranteed result: he provides a regular place to speak, not a promise that their finances or marriage will be restored. The distinction also suits the couple’s situation. Unemployment has made their future uncertain, and even the purpose of counseling is something they must discover rather than take for granted.

Bringing the Marriage’s Silence into the Room

In a later session, Marjorie describes how she first treated Burke’s layoff as a temporary challenge and tried to prove herself a supportive partner by economizing. As the unemployment continued, she says, Burke withdrew rather than admit how bad things had become. She feels shut out by his growing silence and coldness, and sees his insistence on protecting her as another way of keeping her from sharing the problem. She also explains that she had left the workforce after marriage and children, and that Burke’s wish to remain provider and protector had shaped that choice. His purchase of a home computer, ostensibly for the family, had also made her feel that her skills were obsolete, although she had since learned to use a computer through billing work for a dentist.

Marjorie tells Quinlan that she wants Burke himself, not the other man with whom she had been involved, but the emotionally present Burke she remembers. She had disclosed the affair because she felt the marriage had reached a point where it had to change or end, and says she could not have raised the issue with Burke without a counselor present. Her account gives Quinlan a clearer view of what the unemployment has done inside the relationship: the crisis is not only financial but also bound up with Burke’s belief that he must protect his family by concealing his own fear.

Quinlan turns the account toward Burke without treating Marjorie’s interpretation as the final word. He asks whether Burke would like to thaw and bring down the wall between them. Burke admits that he had not realized he was building one; he thought he was trying to hold himself together. Quinlan also asks whether Burke bought the computer to insult Marjorie. Burke says that had never occurred to him, exposing a gap between the intention he assigns to himself and the meaning the purchase acquired for his wife. Quinlan’s questions help distinguish the act from its impact without declaring either spouse’s whole account false.

When Quinlan suggests that people can become suspicious of one another’s judgments, he makes himself part of the example, wondering aloud whether Marjorie is merely humoring him as a Black counselor and whether the couple privately laughs at him. Marjorie says they do not laugh about anything. Quinlan calls paranoia a poor guide, then returns to the couple’s central problem: Marjorie’s image of Burke as frozen, waiting for a cure. He tells them there is no need to hurry so long as the problem is openly acknowledged and progress is being made. Marjorie says that simply talking has made her feel better.

Work, Identity, and Burke’s Resistance

At a subsequent Tuesday session, an uncomfortable silence prompts Quinlan to ask whether Burke’s layoff was a complete surprise. Burke explains that there had been rumors and turmoil in the paper industry, though he had not expected to be affected so soon and had believed himself good at his job. When Burke rejects the optimistic message associated with the mill’s counseling and retraining process, Quinlan does not defend its slogans. He separates the reassuring message Burke hears from the point he wants to make: a person is not identical to a job. People who fuse their worth with their employment can feel worthless when the job disappears, but Quinlan argues that losing work need not mean losing the self.

Burke does not simply accept this distinction. He describes the lesson he took from being laid off as a harsher one: before the dismissal, the company’s language suggested that workers were all in the same enterprise; afterward, he sees a world in which each person must fend for himself. Quinlan asks what that means to him. Burke answers that he believes he has nobody to rely on but himself, and directly connects that conviction to his distance from Marjorie and his concentration on what he calls the fight of his life. Marjorie answers that he is not alone and that he has her. Burke manages a smile, then asks whether she has a job for him. The exchange gives Quinlan’s question a concrete consequence: Burke briefly acknowledges the support he has been refusing, even as his joke keeps the subject of employment between them.

Limits and Narrative Role

Quinlan can identify patterns that Burke has not recognized. He names the wall Burke thought was merely self-control, and challenges the idea that a counselor’s or employer’s reassuring language must be either wholly sincere or wholly useless. Yet his access to the couple remains incomplete. Burke does not tell him what he has done or what he plans to do; privately, he believes the situation will soon improve through his own actions, including the unresolved pursuit of Upton “Ralph” Fallon. The counseling therefore unfolds beside a concealed plot that Quinlan cannot address because Burke has not disclosed it.

That limitation makes Quinlan more than a dispenser of advice. He creates room for Marjorie to describe the injury done by Burke’s silence and for Burke to connect that silence to his conviction that he must depend only on himself. His questions loosen the couple’s stalemate, but do not erase the difference between what they share with him and what Burke keeps hidden. The available scenes show the work beginning, not a settled outcome: Quinlan offers a process of discovery, while the marriage and Burke’s private course remain unresolved.