For forty-five years I’d believed she had simply gone off with a richer man, and I’d carried a quiet ache in my chest through every sermon and every parish call.

Instead, she had given up her own freedom to shield a young man’s calling from a forged fraud charge cooked up by a bank vice president.

“Did Kade keep this the whole time?” I asked.

“He kept it locked in a steel tackle box up in our attic,” Wade said.

“Six days before he died, he signed a sworn statement confirming that Arthur wrote every word of it.”

“Why did she wait until now to give it to me?” I asked.