But I know now that the meeting I had always called an accident was, at the very least, not an accident to Alistair, who recognized me the moment he heard my name — and that the most important door I ever walked through, I walked through without knowing someone had left it open on purpose.

Chapter 15 — Henrik and Alistair

My late father, Henrik Lindqvist, had been a senior corporate accountant for major Midwest firms before his sudden, early retirement years ago — a retirement I had never fully understood, and had never thought to question, because children rarely interrogate the shape of their parents’ lives until it is too late to ask.

“Is there anything else in the box, Astrid?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“With the letter?”