“You were monitoring the condition.”
“Meryl—”
“Was I alive enough yet? Was that it?”
“No.”
“Was I recovered enough to be told my husband had died?”
His voice broke. “There was no recovered enough.”
I looked at him.
“There was only the line he drew,” Wade said. “And I hated it.”
“But you obeyed.”
“Yes.”
The word had become unbearable.
I looked back at Randall’s letter.
Only a few lines remained.
My eyes fell to the ring on the table, then the death certificate, then the medical records proving Randall had been terribly ill while he packed.
The evidence was everywhere.
Truth had weight.
Paper. Metal. Ink. A key.
For a year, I had carried an invisible version of Randall: selfish, cold, vanished. Now the man was being rebuilt in front of me from objects he had chosen.
I did not know which version hurt more.
I read the next line.
