A letter from an accountant who had resigned suddenly and warned the board about weak purchasing controls.

The resignation letter had been circulated at the time, then quietly forgotten.

And there was one more item: a sealed envelope addressed to me in my grandmother’s handwriting.

I had carried it from our old house when we married, then moved it from drawer to drawer without ever opening it.

For years I’d been afraid it contained an explanation of why she had given me so little money compared with my cousins.

I slid a finger under the flap.