My daughter had written my name on this envelope, and then she had died, and now it was being placed in my hands.

“Who are you?” I said again, and my voice broke apart in the middle of it, ten years of unanswered questions rising up all at once and cracking my composure straight down the center.

“Why do you have this?

Where has this been?” The woman took a small step back, wrapping her wool coat more tightly around herself, and I saw now how pale she was, how deep the shadows were beneath her brown eyes, how she carried herself like a person who had been afraid for a very long time.

Whatever this envelope was, it had cost her something to bring it here.