I was scared they’d move me far away.”

“That was your decision to make,” Mrs.

Henderson said.

“But I should have asked you again every year, instead of taking that answer as final forever.”

We came across a letter from a county outreach office dated eight years back.

In the margin Joanne had written: *He deserves warmth, even when he turns it down.* Next to it was a pharmacy receipt in her neat handwriting, recording medicine she had paid for when his benefits ran out.

“I thought she spent it all on food,” I said.