Sky handed him the page.
He read.
His expression changed.
“Luther filed for emergency legal guardianship of you.”
Gregory read again.
“When you were sixteen.”
He flipped to the next page.
“It was conditionally approved.”
Sky stared.
“Pending proof of stable housing and income.”
Gregory continued reading.
“He was supposed to submit final paperwork sixty days later.”
Sky had gone pale.
“He disappeared.”
Gregory looked at the dates.
“Fifty-three days after this was filed.”
“He was going to take me.”
Sky said it like someone solving a calculation and discovering the answer was wrong in a way that could not be disputed.
“He was going to get me out of my mother’s house.”
Her breath caught.
“He never told me.”
She pressed her hand against the edge of the box.
“He was setting it up and he never told me.”
“He probably wanted it certain before he told you,” Gregory said. “So he wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“My hopes.”
The words came out raw.
“He was trying to protect me from hoping too much.”
Sky stopped.
She did not finish.
Both hands rested flat against the box.
She breathed.
Once.
Twice.
Then she picked up the envelope.
She opened it.
The letter was two pages.
Sky read without speaking.
Strand watched her face move through emotions he could not name.
Gregory looked toward the open storage-unit door.
It was the nearest thing he could give her to privacy while still staying as she had asked.
Sky finished.
She folded the letter carefully and placed it back in the envelope.
“He knew he was in trouble.”
Her voice was stripped of performance now.
“He says there were people looking for him.”
She looked toward Gregory.
“He doesn’t say who.”
“He says if something happens, and I find this box, I should go to Gregory Marsh.”
Gregory turned.
“He wrote your full name.”
Sky swallowed.
“Gregory Alan Marsh.”
“He said you’d know what to do.”
Gregory was silent.
Then he spoke.
“He called me six weeks before he disappeared.”
Sky watched him.
“He told me he might need a favor.”
“What did you say?”
“I said name it.”
Gregory stared at the ground.
“He never called back.”
“Because fifty-three days later…”
“Yes.”
They stood in the silence that belongs to people who have finally assembled a picture they wish looked different.
Sky straightened.
Her shoulders settled.
Something returned to her face.
Not the old armor.
Something more real.
Something that had moved through grief and remained standing.
“Renata doesn’t know about these guardianship documents.”
Gregory looked at her.
It was not phrased as a question.
“If she knew they existed, she would already have used them somehow.”
Sky’s eyes sharpened.
“She would’ve tried to invalidate them because the final filing never happened.”
She shook her head.
“But she hasn’t.”
“So she doesn’t know.”
Gregory studied her.
“That’s a very precise way of thinking.”
“Luther taught me that too.”