I could not breathe. The woman in the green coat was Ruth Calder, my closest friend from nursing school and my roommate for three years. We had lost touch in 1984 after a foolish quarrel over a borrowed car, and I had searched for her for decades. “This is my grandson, Caleb,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks. “He described your laugh, and I knew.”

I pulled her into my arms right there on the porch. Caleb stood awkwardly with the baby, smiling through his own tears. Ruth pressed the photograph into my hand and turned it over. On the back, in her loopy handwriting, was a line I had never seen before. I read it twice, and my knees nearly gave way. It said, “Maureen, the car was never the reason I left.”