Daniel lived, Walter said, but his hip never healed right, and the family moved north before he could walk without help. For forty years Walter believed what my mother told him on that porch: that I had burned every letter and wanted no part of them. “She never wanted the truth anyway” was what he said to himself each time he thought of me. I told him I never saw a single letter. I said I had believed my mother because believing Daniel hurt worse, and that I had carried that choice through every ordinary day since. Walter was quiet so long I heard the clock above my stove again.

Daniel had died in March, he told me, and Walter had been emptying the house. He pawned the locket for forty-five dollars because he could not bear to keep it and could not bear to throw it away. He hoped a stranger might care for it. I said I was not a stranger, and I had cared for it all my life, even underwater. The next Saturday I drove four hours to his porch. He handed me a shoebox of letters in Daniel’s slanted hand, every one addressed to me, every one unsent, because Daniel had decided I had made my choice.