“Nora?” the old man asked.

“I’m your husband’s attorney.

He left this backpack for you.”

He placed it in my hands, and the first thing I noticed was how heavy it was, far heavier than a bag of a dying stranger’s few possessions had any right to be.

The lawyer, an elderly, dignified man who introduced himself as Arthur Pendelton, watched my face for a moment, and then lowered his voice, and said the words that turned my grief into something else entirely.

“Julian wasn’t who you thought he was, Nora,” he said softly.