“Not to you. But to Her, that is all I am. And I may not even be that. When the time is right, I want Her to have it.” I reached over and took Lizzie’s hand from where it rested against her chest. “I want Her to know who I am. What She meant. It’s all there.”

We looked at the trunk, worn from handling, like a well-read book.

“You’ve always been its custodian, Lizzie, from the very first word. Please look after it until I’m settled.”

My own bags were packed when Gareth’s kit arrived.

I emptied it carefully onto the kitchen table. There was mud still on the socks I’d knitted; dirt and blood on his spare tunic and trousers. His or another man’s, I didn’t know. My letters were all there, and Rupert Brooke’s poems. I fanned through the pages and found my slip—love, eternal.

I unzipped his shaving kit, emptied his stationery box; I turned every pocket inside out and rubbed lint and dried mud between my fingers. I wanted everything he’d left to touch my skin. I opened my letters to him. The oldest were so worn along the folds, my words were hard to read. When I opened the last, his pages were tucked between mine. The writing was shaky, rushed, but it was Gareth’s hand.