Eleven Years of Eating Lunch by a Window in Columbus, Ohio, Ended With a Box I Never Expected

I moved the sugar bowl to the counter and laid the black notebooks out in a row, from oldest to newest.

There were eleven of them.

Every single one still had its thick rubber band doubled around the cover.

“Start with the shredding,” Liam said.

“October, three years ago.”

I found it before I had finished my coffee.

Derek’s order to clear out every claim file older than five years, and beneath it, in pencil, Charles’s line.

12:40.