And here I was, ten years later, driving those same roads in the other direction, with a ten-year-old in the passenger seat and a decade of things I had never said sitting in my chest like a stone.

There was more in that car than either of my parents could have guessed.

In my bag, wrapped carefully in a scarf, I carried the things I had protected for ten years, the things Grace’s father had left in my keeping before he vanished, the things I had promised to hold safe until the day it was finally safe to bring them into the light.

I had believed, when I made that promise, that I would carry them alone forever.