She put it on the floor between us.

She had carried that through six years, four addresses and a security checkpoint, and I understood within about four seconds what it was for.

It was not sentiment.

It was a file.

She had been carrying a file for six years against the day somebody asked her to prove something.

There were three things in it.

Nine letters, in her handwriting, addressed to me at the Vance Enterprises office on Madison Avenue, sent between June and December of that first year.

All nine unopened.