Lucile did not throw her arms around me.

She did not weep with sudden joy or cry out my name.

That is not how it happened, and I have come to think the truth of it is more precious than the version I would once have imagined.

She simply held the little gold locket in her trembling, water-wrinkled hands, and she stared at the picture inside it, and after a long moment she looked up at me, and her eyes were full of sorrow.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and her voice cracked on it.