I opened the bottom drawer of my father’s old desk, which Christopher had used for eleven years, and I went through the papers in it with my hands, and what I found was a folder of our own documents — the mortgage, the trust drafts, two passports — and, underneath, a plain manila envelope containing eleven pages of a legal pad.

My signature.

Hundreds of times.

Not the one Toby had photographed.

Eleven pages, going back — you could see it, you could see the progression, early sheets clumsy and late sheets almost perfect — and on the last sheet, at the bottom, he had written the date.

He had been practicing my name for seven months.

I put it back exactly as it was.

I photographed nothing.