That small word held recognition and sadness.

I asked whether she would speak with me about why he contacted her late the previous year.

“Yes,” she said.

For once, there was no qualification after the answer.

We arranged a visit.

I did not arrive at another stranger’s house without asking, and I did not bring Sadie into a conversation I could not predict.

A little later, I sat across from an eighty-one-year-old woman in a quiet living room.

She had tea prepared and a thin packet of papers beside an old photograph.