A legal assistant had written across the envelope that the firm’s instructions were not to communicate with me directly.

I remembered standing in a hospital hallway, holding that envelope in one hand while a nurse hurried past with a trolley.

I had spent so much energy trying to make an absent person answer that I nearly missed the people who were actually helping me.

I called Aunt Ruth that night.

She remembered the letters.

She also remembered telling me that sending another might reopen the wound.

‘I wasn’t trying to stop you from telling him,’ she said.