sia

oldier escorted me

om, but to a

office in a high-rise that scr

was

black-and-white photographs. A memorial: the faces of D

, I could see the exhaustion etched into his posture. He

turn when

deposit boxes," he said to the wal

en, and my b

sture didn't reach his eyes. They wer

ross the vast, polish

his voice so flat he could have been reading a quarte

aking to a

the paper. All I could do was look at him, the man

racking. "Look at me. Was there ever

ess in his eyes was so vast I felt like

as my

o leave, hi

shed, sharp

r's charity gala. I'd chased him for

e just so he would have to catch me. And he had

ally confessed my feelings,

, anyway. Instead, he'd pressed his lips to

gret this,

delirious with what

surrounded by the ghosts of his fam

egre