And that would have been the whole of it — that would have been a bad night before a wedding and a family that had to have a very long year afterward — except that as I was getting my keys, my youngest daughter came over to me in the doorway and stood there in a way that meant she was not finished.

And she said, “Dad.

There’s another thing and I’ve had it for two years and I don’t know what to do with it.”

Part Twelve: What Was in the Letters

Willa showed me, that night, in the cab of my truck in a parking lot behind a restaurant in Placerville, with the dome light on.

She scrolled for about four minutes to get back far enough and then she handed me the phone and said, “Start there.

It’s a lot.