Chapter 16: The Letter Without a Name

The old man returned to the top of the tower and found the letter he had hidden for forty years.

The paper had gone brittle and yellow; the place where the name had been torn away looked like a small wound. The person he had meant to write to when he was young was Chaoyin's mother. It was not a confession of love, but an apology he had never spoken: before the storm, he had seen Chaoyin's father change course and had not stopped him.

He had thought silence could protect the living.

Instead, silence had left both the dead and the living lost.