Thick, folded parchment, yellowed and soft with age, the creases worn nearly through from having been folded the same way for a very long time.

I picked it up, and I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, and I unfolded it there under the kitchen light — and I saw at once that it was covered in handwriting I knew, and did not know: Fiona’s hand, unmistakably hers, but firm and sharp and sure, the confident hand of a much younger woman, from years before arthritis had bent her fingers into the trembling claws I had come to know.

The letter was dated fifteen years earlier.

She had written it, and hidden it, and waited fifteen years, and said nothing, and let them all believe she was nothing — and had given it, at the very end, to me.