Up and down and up again

In confidence, for my paid subscribers.

My heart broke this morning, quietly but decisively, on the 7:40 train from Upper Hutt to Wellington. Constable Jacob rang as I was just south of Petone, where the tracks curve around the harbour. I like Jacob a lot, and I know he's put painstaking weeks into trying to help me. I couldn't hold it against him when he broke it to me straight: "I've got absolutely awful news."