My father's letter was eleven pages long.
I know because I counted them afterward, sitting on his bedroom floor with my back against the bed and the pages spread around me in the order I had read them.
He had written it over six months.
I could tell because the handwriting changed slightly between sections, the way handwriting changes when time passes between sittings, when the hand that holds the pen is sometimes steadier and sometimes not. Six months of him sitting down and writing and putting it away and coming back to it. Six months of Sunday phone calls where he asked about my week and told me about his garden.
Six months of carrying this alone.
My mother's name was Lena.
I had known that. What I had not known was the rest of it.
She had come from a pack called Ironveil, in the
