They set the photograph on the table and read the handwriting aloud as if discovering a spell. Verified. The word made them laugh. They traced memories: a summer long ago when they were younger and impatient. They remembered a rental house with peeling blue shutters, a narrow garden where a lemon tree lived dangerously close to the neighbors’ property, and nights when the four of them stayed up repairing a busted stereo with screwdrivers and stubbornness. They had been collaborators in small rebellions—painting murals on weekend fences, organizing a midnight poetry reading on a rooftop, and bargaining with landlords for one more month of rehearsal space.