He hoped the project would help people, though he wasn’t ready to visit.

At the bottom he added, He used to make coffee so strong it could strip paint.

Please tell me you changed that.

I laughed.

Then I cried, because the joke sounded so much like Arthur.

I wrote back that we’d kept the coffee strong on purpose, but there was always milk.

I told him we had saved a few personal objects for him in case he ever wished to see them: the fishing photograph, Arthur’s old pocketknife, and a small wooden box containing ticket stubs from childhood ball games.

I made clear there was no expectation, no deadline, and no connection to the legal settlement.