It was his, worn along the driver’s side.

Daniel had found it after it was lost at the grocery store and carried it in his coat pocket before returning it.

“That one can go,” he said.

“Ben keeps his.”

It resolved something that had bothered me: a message about the boys’ place in the family should not require one boy to lose the toy he still loved.

Marjorie found the original letter while we sorted the remaining family papers.

The clearer copy and Daniel’s current signatures left no doubt for us about the familiar handwriting, although we did not pretend our comparison was forensic authentication.