The rain outside suddenly sounded very loud, and very cold, cold enough to cut skin.

“What records?” I whispered.

“That,” said Arthur Reed, stepping back to let me fully inside, “is what I think you deserve to find out.”

And something happened to me, standing in that stranger’s warm front room with my whole life in a wet suitcase at my feet.

For the first time all night — for the first time in three years, if I am honest — I stopped feeling abandoned.

The grief did not vanish.