She said she’d kept a duplicate set of records somewhere safe.”

The thought of Dana carefully saving documents while home life deteriorated was painfully familiar.

She was the kind of person who labeled boxes and paid utilities early.

She would have kept proof if she thought something was wrong.

That evening, Owen asked if I could make the soup his mother cooked on rainy days.

He described it as “orange but not carrots,” and after some trial and error we decided he meant tomato soup with red lentils.

Elaine brought over the ingredients.