Helen called on a Monday.
Eight in the morning — earlier than their usual communication, which meant something had happened that couldn't wait for business hours. Aria answered immediately.
"The letters arrived," Helen said.
"All of them?"
"All seventeen. Over the weekend." A pause. "Aria — I've been coordinating this group for six months. I've watched these families in meetings and on phone calls and in a community center in midtown." Another pause. "I have never heard some of them the way I heard them this weekend."
Aria sat at her kitchen table. "Tell me."
"Margaret Osei called me Saturday morning," Helen said. "She read me the whole letter. Out loud. All three paragraphs." A pause. "She said — and I'm quoting exactly — he knew my husband's name. He used it. Not the business name.
