Not torn — slit, neatly, along the top edge with something.

Across the front, at an angle, over my own name, was a postal marking: RETURN TO SENDER — NOT AT THIS ADDRESS.

And underneath the flap, on the back, in my mother’s handwriting, which I have known my entire life, in the blue ballpoint she kept by the phone:

Ivan has chosen the Army.

He does not want anything to do with this child.

Please do not write again.