“Mr. Hayes was aware of that.”
“I didn’t save his life. I didn’t do anything important. I bought him soup.”
The attorney looked toward the wooden box.
“He apparently disagreed.”
Then he handed me Walter’s notebook.
The first several pages contained names and brief notes about people his foundation had helped: a mother who finished nursing school, a young father who became an electrician, a woman who completed her teaching degree after receiving childcare assistance, a family that remained in their apartment during a particularly difficult winter.
On the inside cover, Walter had written a single sentence.
This began because Caroline Brooks stopped in the rain.
That was when I completely lost my composure.
For twenty-seven years, I had remembered that evening mainly as evidence that I had once been young enough to make an impractical decision with money I desperately needed.
Walter had remembered it differently.
