I reached out and untied the string with slow, careful fingers, and folded back the butcher paper, and looked at what Sarah had saved from a garbage bin at the risk of nothing but her own trouble, for no reward at all, simply because it was right.

Inside were three thick, cloth-bound photo albums, their covers soft with age, dating back to the 1950s.

There was a stack of handwritten journals tied together with a faded velvet ribbon.

And there was a small jewelry box lined in worn velvet.

My mother leaned forward, her hands trembling slightly, and lifted the top album into her lap and opened it, and the two of us bent over the yellowed pages together.

And there was Nora, young.