Then she stepped away and watched my face, waiting for an answer that would settle the matter.

“Nothing in that envelope could ever change who you are to me,” I said.

“Even if it says something bad?”

“Even then.”

Carmen picked up a paperweight from the desk and put it down again.

“You do not know what is in there.”

“Neither does Renata.

Yet she has been told I might stop loving her because of it.”

“I was trying to protect her.”

“From me?”

She did not answer.

The envelope had been sealed with a narrow strip of old tape, and the paper had yellowed along the edges.

Someone had written a number beneath the address in dark ink, pressing hard enough to leave marks on the back.

I turned it over to read the number again.