A Stranger Left an Envelope Beside My Bed on My Sixty-Second Birthday—Then I Found His Photograph with My Son

Then the bell over the shop door rang, and he moved past me.

“Go home.

Check your drawers again.”

I stayed seated until he was out of the office.

The invoices on his desk had red markings down their margins.

A court notice lay beneath a catalog, its November 12 date visible.

I didn’t touch it.

By then I was wary of how easily an ordinary object could become a reason to suspect someone I had loved all his life.