The letter had been written months after his birth, not on the day I was remembering in my shock.

Daniel had asked Marjorie to keep a copy safe.

The original had stayed among our papers.

“He was proud of the family,” she said.

I recognized the cramped letters.

The copy had faded along a fold, and the last paragraph wasn’t clear enough to read comfortably.

“Why give you a copy?”

“He wanted somebody else to keep it.”