“That’s fair.”

It was difficult to hear her accept it.

Some part of me wanted the answers to become easier because she was crying and because there was a boy upstairs who resembled Patrick.

Neither fact could substitute for the records.

The jeweler’s receipt gave us a place to begin.

I contacted the shop, explained who I was, and arranged to discuss the work on the ring with the documentation Samantha provided.

No one at the shop presented the inscription as a prediction about Patrick’s death.