The lawyer, an elderly, dignified man who introduced himself as Arthur Pendelton, watched my face for a moment, and then lowered his voice, and said the words that turned my grief into something else entirely.
“Julian wasn’t who you thought he was, Nora,” he said softly.
“He wanted you to know the truth.” I looked up at him, uncomprehending.
Julian was a lonely old tailor who had died of heart failure with no family in the world; that was who Julian was; there was nothing else to know.
But Arthur’s grave expression, and the strange heaviness of the backpack in my lap, told me otherwise, told me that the man I had married, the man I had held through his final week believing him to be a forgotten soul, had been carrying a secret so large it required a lawyer and a heavy green backpack to deliver it.
