She had gone back to her own name.

Under it, in a small plastic bag, a lock of dark hair.

Under that, four photographs — a very small red-faced baby, the same baby asleep on somebody’s chest, a toddler covered in something orange, a boy of about five in a paper crown.

And at the bottom of the box, an envelope.

It was addressed in her handwriting.

My name, and then an address I had not lived at in seven years — my mother’s house on Bellamy Street in Wilmington — because that was the address the Army had on file for my personal mail, because I had put it there myself in September in a four-minute administrative transaction.

The envelope had been opened.