I added a fourth promise beneath the other three: Show up tomorrow, even when nobody applauds.

I no longer wore the hidden wedding ring.

It lay in a wooden box with the photographs of the years Hannah and I had shared.

They had been real.

So was the harm I had done.

So was the possibility of living differently.

At 10:03 that night, my phone lit up with a photograph.

Clara had fallen asleep holding her red bucket.

Hannah’s message read: She says the castle needs rebuilding tomorrow.

I replied: Tell her I’ll be there at ten, if that still works for you.

A moment later came her answer.

Ten is good.

For a man who had once measured his life in territory, money and fear, those three ordinary words were more than enough.