I remember how the date landed on me — the day before.

Not some distant artifact from years earlier, but the eve of the trip itself, the last ordinary evening of my husband’s life, caught by accident and kept in the air for six years.

Whatever was on that recording had happened in the final hours before everything, when Lucas was alive and planning and had no idea that the plans were the last he would ever make.

I was almost afraid to see it, the way you are afraid to open a letter you know will change you, and I made myself open it anyway.”