the amend he can't deliver to the man who can't receive it — "and I haven’t been able to…"

The A.D.A.'s confession is doubly misrouted: the amend he owes must be spoken to Gately, who lies shot and unconscious and cannot receive it, so the man sits paralyzed outside the room for hours and then drives home; and the confession he can deliver, he unloads instead on Pat "in explicit confidence," a stranger down the hill, because she's the only listener available. The one message he needs to transmit reaches no one it's meant for — a plea for forgiveness stalled outside a mute man's door, rerouted to a bystander sworn to secrecy, the channel to its actual recipient sealed by the very violence that made the amend necessary. (The Ninth-Step / program mechanics are addiction-recovery's; landed here on the undeliverable-amend angle.) [sweep · shared-ground addiction-recovery]