Chapter 6 — Plan B

We ended up in a modest boarding house near the city center.

A single furnished room, a double bed, a shared bathroom down the hall, and an elderly landlady named Mrs.

Gable who agreed, without too many questions, to accept weekly cash payments.

When Sophia finally fell asleep that night, one small hand curled against the unfamiliar pillow, I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out my phone.

And I opened a private, secure note I had kept saved for years, a note I had written and added to quietly across the long slow decline of my time in that apartment, a note titled, simply, PLAN B.