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At the office she settles herself back into Francis’s old desk. How long will it take for it to feel like her own? Maybe once she has successfully written a column? Or perhaps once she has been here a month? Or possibly never, Alex thinks, dumping the latest bin of envelopes out onto the desk and pawing through them.

What Lucy said about the actual letters being the juicy ones is true. Alex has already read so many shocking admissions she is nearly numb, from cheating spouses to secret debts; there are things in the pages on her desk that could end marriages and ruin careers and put more than a few people into serious legal trouble. Still, she completely understands why they do it. There is something sacred about being able to put all of your worries, all the struggles and sadness, down on a piece of paper and sending it off to somebody anonymously. Something nearly ritualistic, like burning a photo of your ex or a scrap of paper at New Year’s.

The downside to this is that she can’t help everyone. What can Alex say to ease the guilt of someone who wasn’t there when a loved one died, or to soothe a woman who has lost her baby? All she wants to do is fix everything for them, to give them back their sparks for life, to ease their guilt.

The room has gone dark except from the light of her desk lamp. It catches the glass of the photos up on the wall. In one, Francis is perched on the edge of a table in the newsroom. She holds up a newspaper and points down at her column, smiling. Alex wonders how Francis managed to take it all in day after day, year after year. Did the struggles and suffering weigh on her? Or, after so long, was she able to push their voices aside to live her own life?

That isn’t the point, she reminds herself, thinking back on an old interview with Francis she’d read. “Do you feel bad you can’t help them all?” the interviewer had asked, to which Francis replied, “Of course, but the point of the column is for everyone to see that part of it is in their own control, that it always has been. A bit like Dorothy’s ruby slippers.”

Alex had started reading Francis’s columns so many years ago when she truly needed them. Even if the problems in the published letters were nothing like her own, the advice was always something she could use. And beyond that, it was a reminder that we are all struggling, that no one has a monopoly on suffering. There are still so many snippets of Francis’s answers interspersed in Alex’s consciousness, mantras she tells herself when things get hard.

She takes a random envelope from the pile and begins to read a letter from a person who became obsessed with having it all. The letter tells a story of someone who had everything they ever wanted but lost it because they wanted even more—a perfect apartment, designer clothes, invitations to every social event—going into debt in the process and eventually losing everything. An interesting topic, but Alex can tell the person is not self-aware enough to change, so it feels like a response might be in vain. She puts it in the pile for Lucy to take away. She will have to keep reading. The longer it takes to find the right letter to answer, the more anxiety builds inside her.

She pulls a fresh letter out of the bin and slides a crisply folded sheet of paper from the envelope. The actual letter is only a few sentences long. She has to unfold the page to find the words there, in the very middle, indented and slightly off-center as though written on an old typewriter. As she reads, a chasm opens up in her chest.

Dear Constance,

I know who you are. You are hiding something, aren’t you? Soon everyone else will know it too. If you aren’t careful you are going to end up just like Francis.