“I just need something to focus on. I’m especially worried about those people who gave him literally all their money. I mean, can you imagine? You give your whole retirement to Bill, and then—poof!—it’s gone?”

He shook his head. “It’s a damn shame. But it isn’t Bill’s fault.”

“I know, but I just… I don’t know. I feel like I could help.”

“Okay,” Oliver said. “If that’s what you want to do then I’ll support you.”

“Oh! Oliver! The Capstone Fund.” I filled him in on what Bradley had told me, and his eyebrows raised in a way that I recognized.

“You already knew,” I said.

He winked at me. “I need to get started on getting your husband out of jail.” Oliver’s phone rang again, and he silenced it again as he turned away. “I’ll email you the list when I can get it all together.”

The list. Of people I would pay back. With my job in New York. I was suddenly swamped by sadness. What if it was months or even years before I was back under the same roof as my husband?

Sonja, our mail carrier, called, “Hey, Charlotte!” breaking me out of that awful thought.

“Hi!” I called back, shading my eyes, walking toward her through the parking lot. She handed me a fat stack of mail. “Thanks,” I said.

She waved and was off, just as I noticed that the letter on the tippy top was for me. And it was addressed in handwriting I adored. I used to tell Bill how romantic I thought it would be to write love letters back and forth. How I wished I could take that back now. I didn’t want to write our love story; I wanted to live it. I slid my finger under the seal and, right there on the sidewalk, started reading, as if it were a dessert I couldn’t wait one more second to dive into.