Miguel's letter arrived on a Wednesday in May.
She'd expected contact, eventually — she'd told him she'd be in touch when she was ready and she hadn't been ready and she'd been aware of the gap that created. She hadn't expected him to move first. She'd been wrong about that.
The letter was handwritten. Not carefully handwritten like Pereira's — Pereira had the handwriting of someone performing honesty with his hands. This was the handwriting of someone who wrote slowly because writing was effortful, who pressed too hard and crossed things out and started sentences again with slightly different words, the handwriting of manual labour and not enough practice.
She read it at the kitchen table at eight in the morning. Leonardo was at work. Daniel was at school. The flat was quiet.
He wrote
