It was past midnight now, and in her room, Adrienne held the conch as she sat on the bed. Dan had called an hour earlier, full of news about Amanda.

“She told me she was going to take the boys out tomor-row, just the three of them. That they needed to spend some time with their mom.” He paused. “I don’t know what you said, but I guess whatever it was worked.”

“I’m glad.”

“So what did you say to her?’ She was, you know, kind of circumspect about it.”

“The same thing I’ve been saying all along. The same thing you and Matt have been saying.”

“Then why did she listen to you this time?”

“I guess,” Adrienne said, drawing out the words, “be-cause she finally wanted to.”

Later, after she’d hung up the phone, Adrienne read the letters from Paul, just as she’d known she would. Though

his words were hard to see through her tears, her own words were even harder to read. She’d read those countless times, too, the ones she had written to Paul in the year they’d been apart. Her own letters had been in the second stack, the stack that Mark Flanner had brought with him when he’d come to her house two months after Paul had been buried in Ecuador,

Amanda had forgotten to ask about Mark’s visit before she’d gone, and Adrienne hadn’t reminded her. In time, Amanda might bring it up again, but even now, Adrienne wasn’t sure how much she would say. This was the one part of the story she’d kept entirely to herself over the years, locked away, like the letters. Even her father didn’t know what Paul had done.

In the pale glow of the streetlight shining through her window, Adrienne rose from the bed and took a jacket and scarf from the closet, then walked downstairs. She un-locked the back door and stepped outside.

Stars were blazing like tiny sparkles on a magician’s cape, and the air was moist and cold. In the yard, she could see blackened pools, reflecting the ebony above. Lights shone from neighbors’ windows, and though she knew it was just her imagination, she could almost smell salt in the air, as if sea mist were rolling over the neighborhood yards. Mark had come to the house on a February morning; his arm was still in a sling, but she’d barely noticed it. Instead, she found herself staring at him, unable to turn away. He looked, she thought, exactly like his father. When he of-fered the saddest of smiles as she opened the door, Adri-enne took a small step backward, trying hard to hold back the tears.

They sat at the table, two coffee cups between them, and Mark removed the letters from the bag he’d brought with him.

“He saved them............