I had dinner with a young stranger at the same café for thirty nights straight — then he set down his fork and said, "You didn't really believe there was no reason behind this, did you?"

My hands went cold in my lap.

"Walter begged you," I said. It came out as a whisper. "You knew my husband?"

Eli looked away. The muscle in his jaw jumped.

He reached into the bag, slow, like whatever was in there might break, and set an envelope on the table between our bowls. It was old. Soft at the corners. Handled a hundred times.

My name was on the front, in Walter's cramped little handwriting.

"He gave me this two years ago," Eli said quietly. "Made me swear I wouldn't bring it to you until after."

"Two years." My voice cracked down the middle. "You knew my husband for two years and sat across from me every night and said nothing?"

He didn't answer. He just stared at the envelope like it might move.

I reached for it. This time he let me.

Before I could work a finger under the flap, his phone went off, buzzing hard against the tabletop. He turned it face-up on reflex, saw the screen, and all the color left him.

He killed the call. Fast. Too fast.

"Who was that?"

"Nobody."

"Eli."

He shoved his chair back and stood, and it scraped so loud that two people at the counter turned around. His eyes were wet.

"There's something that isn't in the letter," he said. "Something I've been trying to figure out how to say to you for a month."

He looked at me the way you look at someone right before you hurt them.

"Walter didn't die alone that morning."

The whole café seemed to drop away. There was a ringing in my ears, like the minutes after a loud concert.

"What are you talking about?" I said. "I was there. I found him."

Eli shook his head, slow.