The letter arrived on a Wednesday morning, exactly twenty-seven days into the stabilization phase that Kevin had documented as "the longest crisis-free interval in household history."
It came in a plain white envelope with a postmark from a maximum security prison in upstate New York, the kind of facility that housed men like Alexander Kane—men who had tried to destroy empires and the women who built them. The envelope was addressed to me in handwriting I didn't recognize: small, precise, controlled. It had been opened and inspected by prison authorities, a stamp on the back indicating it had passed security screening. Someone had written "CLEARED" in red ink across the sealed flap.
