I turned the envelope over in my palm.

The seal was unbroken, the glue set firm after six years in a dark drawer.

“I wrote to you from every deployment,” I said.

“I sent forty-three letters.”

“I know,” Clare said.

“I counted every single one the night I took them from his desk.”

She looked down at my right hand, watching me twist my silver ring around my finger.

“I’m sorry it took me fifteen years to bring them to you,” Clare said.