“I haven’t opened it,” Anna said.

“It’s addressed to Claire.”

Chapter 7: Carol’s Last Words

None of us moved for a moment.

The envelope sat in the center of the table — white, clean, with Claire’s name written in Carol’s handwriting.

Smaller letters than the first letter, shakier.

The hand of someone who was already running out of time.

“She knew my name,” Claire said again.

The same words as before, but they meant something different now.

“She must have found it in my letter,” Anna said.

“The one I sent her years ago, telling her you were healthy.

I must have mentioned your name.” She paused.

“I’m sorry.

I didn’t think — “

“Don’t apologize,” Claire said.

She was staring at the envelope.

“She reached out.

Even at the end, she reached out.” A pause.

“That counts for something.”

Tom put his hand over hers on the table.

“You don’t have to open it now,” I said.

“I know.” Claire reached out and picked it up.

She turned it over once.

Her name, in that unfamiliar hand.

A woman she had never met, who had shaped the entire course of her life without ever being in the same room as her.

She opened it.

One page.

I could see from where I sat that it was not a long letter.

Carol had never been someone who used more words than she needed.

Claire read it in silence.

Her face was very still.

Tom watched her.

Anna watched the window.

When she finished, she set it down and pressed both hands flat against the table.

“She apologized,” Claire said.

“She said she had no right to ask for forgiveness.

She said she wasn’t writing to ask for it.” A pause.

“She said she just wanted me to know that she had thought about me.

That she had wondered about me.

That she was glad I existed, even if she had no right to say so.”

The kitchen was very quiet.

“She said one more thing,” Claire continued.

Her voice had changed — not broken, but different.

Softer.

“She said that James was a good man.

That he had loved her well and she hadn’t deserved it.

And that if I ever met him, she hoped I would give him a chance.” Claire looked at me.

“She said — she said he had so much love in him and nowhere left to put it.”

I pressed my hand over my mouth.