I didn’t donate the jacket. I sank to the floor, clutching it like a lifeline, the paper shaking in my hands as if I could somehow turn back time by holding on tighter. All the birthdays he’d quietly planned, the rides he’d given, the way he always stood in the back of the auditorium—suddenly, they came rushing back, sharp and unbearably clear.

I had spent years punishing the wrong man. The one who left lived only in a shadow; the one who stayed had carried my picture in his pocket until the day he died. I pressed the jacket to my face, breathing in the faint trace of his cologne, whispering the word I’d never given him when he was alive. Now, when I slip it on, I don’t just feel its weight on my shoulders. I feel his hand at my back, steady, patient, still choosing me.