"Yes. I hope to make a better life here, to be the person I could have been if not for-- for what I did. What I allowed to happen."

Thomas wants badly to have a life, a real one, out from beneath the specter of his past, away from Lucille's smothering presence. He has a chance here, he has to believe he can make something of it. A simple, quiet life doesn't seem like a bad future.