And a second copy of every birthday card he’d ever sent me. All fifteen. He’d kept a copy of each, dated, in order.
Under those was a note in Julian’s adult handwriting.
She would have told you these things herself. I just held onto them until you were ready.
I held the vest against my chest and sat in the dark until the streetlights came on.
Then I plugged the USB drive into my laptop.
For illustrative purposes only
Part 7: What He Wanted Me to Hear
The video was eleven minutes long.
Julian had recorded it in the recliner. Judging by his face, it was early July—a few weeks after we’d met, before he got too thin to sit up.
“Hi, Claire,” he said, and my throat closed up at the sound of his voice. “If you’re watching this, Arthur did his job, and you’ve read the letter. And you’re probably pretty mad at me.”
