I’m going to write to Mateo. I’ve started the letter four times and thrown it out. I don’t know what you say to someone like that, someone who knew a version of your husband you never did.

But I’m going to figure it out, because that’s apparently what Robert would have done.

He never missed a payment. Not once in twenty-two years.

I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did. And somehow that’s the thing I’m most grateful for.