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

I put on my coat.

In the car, he talked about a market that had closed twenty years earlier.

He remembered pink-frosted cookies.

I remembered counting my change before agreeing to buy them.

“You always made it seem easy,” he said.

“It wasn’t.”

He smiled as if I were making a joke.

I looked out the window.