PART 1 — THE BLUE FOLDER IN MOM’S DRAWER

The blue bank folder was sticking out of Mom’s kitchen drawer when Mark called, and he was speaking so quietly that I stopped stacking the cereal bowls.

“Mom was shouting about it,” he said.

“She wants this folder back.”

I dried my hands on the dish towel and looked at Emma and Noah at the table.

Emma was rubbing the corner of a paper napkin between two fingers.

Noah had lined three spoons beside his bowl, handles perfectly even.

“What folder?”

“The blue one.

Bank statements, I think.

I found it behind the old checkbook.”

I knew the checkbook.

Mom had carried it for years, a thick brown thing with a cracked cover and a rubber band wrapped around it.

I had seen it a thousand times when I was growing up.

I had not thought about it since the winter before, when I helped organize her bills.

“Where is the folder now?”

“Right here.”

A drawer slid shut on his end.

“Mom knows I have it.