Seven years earlier.
A charity dinner in Manhattan.
Adrian sitting beside me because, he claimed, somebody had changed the place cards.
He had asked about Vermont.
I had laughed.
“How do you know I love Vermont?”
“Lucky guess.”
Then he mentioned a tiny used bookstore in Woodstock.
Baker & Pine.
My father used to take me there every autumn.
Almost nobody knew that.
I had stared at Adrian and thought—
Fate.
I put the photograph down.
Daniel’s warning returned.
The original email chain.
In the chaos after the assault, I had not opened it.
Rebecca had.
When I asked about it, she kept saying, “When you’re ready.”
I suddenly knew I was ready.
Or as ready as anyone ever becomes to meet the ghost of their own life.
I called her.
“I want the emails.”
Silence.
“Eleanor.”
“Send them.”
“Read them with someone.”
“No.”
“Please.”
