Chapter 12: Open When It Matters

There was one sheet of paper inside.

It was folded in thirds, written on both sides in a hand I knew better than my own.

Rhys's handwriting leaned forward.

I held it to the lantern with fingers that did not feel like mine.

*Lena,*

*If you're reading this, the day I hoped would never come has come, and it matters.*

*So here is the truth, in the order I should have said it two years ago.*

*The night we married, you went to take a shower, and your bag fell off the bed.*

*A gray folder slid out. I picked it up to put it back.*

*The top page was a copy of a sailing order with my signature on it.*

I stopped reading.

The cellar was very quiet.

Abel snored on, and Junie breathed against my collarbone, and behind me Rhys slept with his arm around us.

I made myself go on.

*I read all of it. Your brother's photograph. The list of the twelve men. The date he died.*

*I know who Danny Marsh was.*

*I know why you let me find you, and why you said yes.*

*I'm not going to tell you I didn't sign that order. I did.*

*I was twenty-five. My father put it in front of me with a weather report attached, and I signed without reading the report.*

*That is my sin, and I have never once pretended otherwise.*

*What I didn't know that night was whether the report was true.*

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