“I am perfectly fine,” I said, my fingers tightly gripping the dry paper inside my pocket.
The afternoon heat had begun to break by five, leaving the living room in deep, long shadows that stretched across the pine floor. Daniel sat on the edge of the sofa, his silver watch reflecting the faint light from the window as he rotated the bezel.
I pulled the empty 1971 envelope from my sweater pocket and laid it on the coffee table between us, right next to the faded lighthouse postcard.
“I found this in Clara’s desk today,” I said, smoothing my skirt down over my knees to keep my hands from shaking. “It was addressed to your father, but Clara had it hidden away.”
Daniel looked down at the envelope, his jaw tightening until the muscle twitched beneath his collar.
“She told me you were dead, Daniel,” I said, the words heavy and cold in the quiet room. “She told me the military sent a formal notice saying you were gone.”
“I was not dead,” Daniel said, his voice dropping to a low, hard rasp. “I wrote to you three times from the hospital in California as soon as I could hold a pencil.”
