Instead it arrived through emails, meetings, quiet rooms, and sentences I could hardly bear to speak.

There was no triumph in it.

Only clarity, and a grief I would have to learn how to carry.

PART 18: The Letter That Arrived Late

Helen came to see me again in November, carrying an envelope she said Connor had left at her house.

She hadn’t opened it.

“You can read it or not,” she told me.

“That’s entirely your decision.”