She had walked into a marriage founded on a lie and suffered silently for forty-five years only to keep my pulpit safe from Arthur’s false charges.

Her whole life had been a quiet shield held over my head.

“She never let Kade bring up the 1979 check,” Wade said, standing next to me with his hands buried in his coat pockets.

“Not until he was lying in the hospice bed four years ago.”

“She guarded your calling every single day, Tom,” Helen said.

I pressed my brass wedding band to the edge of the marker.

The old, dull weight of regret I’d carried since I was young lifted away into the clear autumn sky.