“I’m okay,” Rachel says, because I’m staring at her, waiting for signs that she’s not. When I look back, Frederick is standing in that formal way he has. “My wife, Elena, died twenty years ago,” he says, and the room is so quiet. He tells the group about the night she died, when he sat next to her and read from her favorite book. Rachel looks over at me. “The Walcott,” we say together.
