And then, near dawn, she had sewn that little flash drive into her son’s jacket and coached him on the seven words and sent him anyway, one last desperate try, because a mother does not get to give up.

I think about how close it came.

I think about it more than I should.

If Emily had lost her nerve at dawn, if she had decided I was too far gone to reach, I would have married Rebecca ten minutes later, and I would not have learned the truth until it was standing on the deed to my house.

I think what undoes me most, when I let myself sit with that night, is that Emily had every reason not to try again.