took us. But he survived the attack.”
“How long?”
“A few weeks.”
A few weeks.
For fifty-six years I had comforted myself with the idea that James died instantly.
Quickly.
Painlessly.
That he never knew what happened.
But he had lived for weeks.
He had been hurt.
Afraid.
Far from home.
And I had never known.
“You were with him?”
“Almost every day.”
I lifted the paper flower.
“He made this there?”
Adrian nodded.
“He found a scrap of yellow paper. After folding it, he held it up and said
