It was a battered cardboard file box, the kind Colby used for tax papers. Inside were stacks of medical bills, most of them stamped PAST DUE in red. Surgeries. Rehabilitation. Eye specialists. The total on the top page was more than eighty-seven thousand dollars. Under the bills lay a termination letter from Colby’s engineering firm, dated five months ago.

I sat down hard on the floor. Five months. Every morning, he had kissed my forehead and told me he was leaving for work. At the very bottom of the box was a sealed envelope with my name on it in his neat block letters. To Grace, if you ever see again. I tore it open. The first line made my hands shake. I’m sorry I lied about where I go every day.