The paper had yellowed at the edges.

He unfolded it with great care, cleared his throat, and began to read, and as he read, his old voice seemed to take on something of my father’s cadence, that slow deliberate weight my father had used when he wanted you to understand that what he was saying was final.

I knew that cadence.

I had grown up under it.

It was the voice my father used for pronouncements rather than conversations, the voice that did not expect a reply because it did not recognize the possibility of one.