He finished the speech on a Wednesday.
Not the first draft — the final one. He had been writing it for three weeks, the same way he had written the vows, in increments, at the study desk, the pen moving when it had something true to say and stopping when it didn't.
The final line arrived at eleven-fifteen on a Wednesday night.
He wrote it.
Read the whole thing once.
It surprised him.
Not what it said — he had known, somewhere beneath the writing, that this was where the speech was going. What surprised him was seeing it written. The specific quality of a true thing on a page that you had been carrying for years without knowing you were carrying it.
He read the last line twice.
He folded the speech.
Left it on the kitchen counter.
Caelan found it in the morning.
