The Letter She Already Knew by Heart

When Margaret Chen's husband David deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, he left a handwritten letter tucked inside her nightstand drawer. "Read this when you're afraid," he wrote on the envelope. For fourteen months, Margaret unfolded that letter so many times the creases wore thin. She could recite every line from memory. But here's what she discovered — it wasn't the words themselves that steadied her on the worst nights.…