I married a stranger from a hospital waiting room so he wouldn’t d*e alone — after our one-week marriage, his lawyer handed me his backpack, saying, “He wanted you to know the truth.”

“March 2, 1981. Halvard Nyström. He was never in the Navy.”

“July 19, 1984. Bernice Cobb. The recipe is oregano, not marjoram, and she let her sister be wrong for forty years on purpose.”

“October 30, 1988. Wendell Pike. The girl’s name is Ruth and she was right about the house.”

“January 4, 1990. Anonymous, room 12. Would not give a name. Said: ‘Just write that somebody was here.'”

That one is written exactly like that.

There are nine of those.

Nine people, over forty-six years, who would not give him a name and who used their one true thing to make sure that a notebook somewhere recorded that they had existed on a specific night.

“Just write that somebody was here.”

“August 11, 1996. Odile Fontaine. She is not afraid, and she wants it said that she is not afraid, because everyone keeps telling her it’s all right to be.”

“May 2, 2003. Tobias Reyes. He is sorry about the dog.”