Fifteen Years After My Father Changed the Locks, He Seated Me at Table Twenty-Two

“Those are private papers.”

“They were in your desk drawer,” Clare said.

“Behind the old policy ledgers.

You told me she never wrote.”

She set the bundle on the podium and untied the twine.

The top envelope had a faded airmail stamp and my own return address from Scott Air Force Base.

I read my name in my own handwriting.

The ink had gone brown at the fold.