It was written in a language he had never learned to read.

And it undid him completely.

“Thank you, Naomi,” I said.

“For making sure he can never touch her life again.”

“You did the hard part, Loretta,” she answered, watching Veronica laugh as Reyes lifted her up to hook the birdhouse onto a high branch.

“You stood up when the whole room was telling you to sit down.”

After she left, the sun began to slip toward the hills, and the sky went violet and then a deep burning rose.

Veronica trotted back to the headstone, wiped a smudge of dirt off her knee, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to the cool granite.