Caleb’s voice shook, but he did not look away. “Ben knew something about me for six years. He was the only one who did.” The room went silent. My husband, still standing, gripped the pew in front of him. Caleb unfolded a crumpled sheet of notebook paper. “Three weeks before he died, he made me promise something. I didn’t want to keep it. I’m keeping it anyway.”

I stopped breathing. Caleb turned and looked straight at me. “Mrs. Hartley, he wrote this with you in mind.” The paper rattled against the microphone in his trembling hands. “He said if I read it exactly as he wrote it, you would finally understand why I came like this. And he said the first line would be the hardest.” Then he began to read.