The store owner stared at my old dachshund as though he’d seen a ghost. “How long have you had her?” he asked. I told him I’d adopted her from the county shelter five months earlier. His hands began trembling. “Her name was Daisy,” he whispered. “She belonged to my sister Margaret, who died last year.” Then he showed me an old photograph. My heart stopped when I saw Daisy standing beside my late wife, Helen. I had never known they had ever met.

Daniel, the store owner, led me into his office and opened a wooden box his sister had left behind. Inside was a sealed letter addressed to me, with Helen’s unmistakable handwriting across the envelope. She had secretly become friends with Margaret while undergoing cancer treatment and had arranged for Daisy to find me after she was gone. Helen knew how devastated I’d be and feared I would disappear into loneliness after her death. But the letter contained another message—one that made my hands tremble for an entirely different reason.

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