The station was a skeleton of iron and glass, humming with the transit of thousands of souls who weren't him. Elias stood by Platform 4, his coat collar turned up against the damp chill. He checked his watch. The train from the coast was late.
But as she saw him—as her face broke into a smile that erased every year of their absence—Elias realized that "fine" was a poor substitute for being found.
, a letter had arrived. It wasn’t a digital notification or a frantic text, but a heavy, cream-colored envelope with a stamp from a town he hadn’t visited in twenty years. He didn’t open it immediately. He let it sit on the mahogany sideboard, a small, paper ghost haunting his hallway.
