Neither of us spoke at first.

There was a great deal that could have been said between us, and much of it was the kind of thing that only makes wounds worse, and we both seemed to know it, and so we sat in a difficult, brittle silence, two women who loved the same man and were about to grieve him in ways that threatened to set us against each other.

Then, quietly, I took Mark’s letter out of my bag, and I handed it to her.

She looked at it, and then at me.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Something he wanted you to read,” I said.