Life at the orchard cottage did not become perfect overnight.

Hannah started therapy, re-enrolled in the local public school, and needed months before she could sleep with the lights off.

And I finalized my discharge and learned to do a hundred things the Army had never taught me — to braid hair, to help with third-grade math, to make chicken soup from scratch, to be, at forty-one, a full-time father to a wounded child.

A month in, Gabriel found a sealed letter my father had tucked into the trust documents, addressed to both Veronica and me.