That is true and it is unforgivable and I am not softening it.

But the letter my mother stole was already, before it ever reached that porch, a letter from a woman who had stopped expecting anything from me.

Part Eight: The Third Time

I went to see Carmen four days later, on a Saturday, at a coffee place on Manor Road that she picked.

I had the box with me.

I put the three things on the table and she looked at them for a long time without touching them, and then she picked up the photograph and turned it over and read her own handwriting, and put it down.

She said, “So she kept them.”

“Yes.”

“Both.”

“Both.”