“Tell me,” she said. Richard looked at her steadily. “I will—explain, I promise, every bit of it. But Helen, will you speak to him first? I need you to hear him before you hear me.” She stared at her husband. That word still sat strangely. Husband. She looked back toward the chapel. The stranger was standing in the doorway now, watching them.
He didn’t approach. He stood in the chapel doorway holding Daniel’s photo against his chest— not clutching it, cradling it, and waited. He looked exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the day. Like a man at the end of something very long. Like someone who had been carrying a weight with no guarantee it would ever be received.