Jessica moved into her sister’s apartment after we agreed that sharing the house was making everything worse.

We inventoried our belongings without shouting.

She took her grandmother’s dining chairs, a set of cookbooks, and the blue ceramic bowl she had made in college.

I kept the old record player and the workbench my father built.

We both stood in the hallway when she lifted our wedding photograph from its hook.

“Would you like it?” she asked.

I shook my head.

She wrapped the frame in a towel and placed it in a box.

There was no dramatic speech left for either of us.

Some endings arrived as small, deliberate motions that could never be undone.

CHAPTER 13: The Employer’s Door

Richard returned to work on Wednesday as if nothing had happened.

Jessica’s supervisor outside his department called her for a confidential conversation about a potential conflict of interest.

The company had received a complaint alleging that Richard had supervised employees with whom he had personal relationships.

Jessica was asked to provide dates and identify decisions that might have affected her position.

She contacted her attorney before responding.

I stayed out of the workplace investigation because the affair did not make me an authority over her employment.

Caroline later told me Richard had moved into a hotel.

He continued sending messages accusing her of embarrassing him.

She stopped replying except through counsel about their shared property.

A week later, someone slipped a photocopy of my father’s letter beneath Aaron’s workshop door.

Across the top, in thick black ink, were the words YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THIS ALONE.

Aaron called me before touching anything else.

We photographed the page and contacted Naomi.

She instructed us to preserve the envelope and avoid speculating about the sender.

No one had seen who left it.

We could not assume Richard had done so merely because we feared him.

That evening Aaron found an old voicemail saved on his workshop answering machine.

The caller had asked whether David still volunteered at the Mercer Street restoration center.

The message was two days old and contained no name.

I listened carefully and recognized nothing familiar in the voice.

Aaron looked disappointed when I refused to call it proof.

“I want somebody responsible for this,” he said.

“So do I,” I answered.

“That’s why I don’t want us to blame the wrong person.”

CHAPTER 14: The Other Child

Naomi eventually told Lillian that she had located a surviving administrative record from Alder House.