My husband fastened the last medevac harness across his mistress’s chest while I lay twenty feet away waiting for the heart surgeon who could keep me alive.

A week before the grand opening of the recovery center, I received a thick manila envelope in the mail from the State Department of Corrections.

Inside was a single letter from Everett’s court-assigned prison case officer, along with a certified bank draft for $1,420—his remaining prison commissary balance, which had been automatically garnished under court order to contribute toward his outstanding legal restitution.

Attached was a handwritten note from Everett, written on lined yellow legal paper:

Odette, They moved me to the maximum-security wing in Moberly last month. I work in the prison laundry room four hours a day. Every time I hear a helicopter pass overhead, I think of that roof. I think of the rain. I think of your eyes looking down at me. I know you will never forgive me. I don't deserve it. Maren refused to accept my letters. My sister sold my car. I have nothing left. Please... just tell me if your heart is okay. Everett.

I stood in my newly renovated living room, holding the letter over the small marble fireplace.

I didn't feel anger. I didn't feel satisfaction or malice.

I simply felt nothing.

He was a ghost from a life I no longer belonged to—a man who had traded his honor, his freedom, and his soul for greedy illusions, now left with empty hands in a cold concrete cell.

I struck a match, touched the flame to the edge of the yellow paper, and watched it burn.

The ashes fell quietly into the black hearth, consumed by the light.

My phone chimed on the coffee table. A text from Marcus: