The letter sat on Lara's drafting table for three days. She didn't hide it, but she didn't read it again. It was a stone that had been dropped into the still pond of her present, and she was waiting for the ripples to settle, to see the new pattern on the water's surface.

On the fourth morning, with the sharp, clear light of Lausanne slicing across the page, she made a decision. She could not simply absorb this truth. She had to verify it. To understand its shape, its edges. She needed to know if the man who wrote the letter was real, or just another meticulously constructed fiction.