Chapter 20 — May I Help You Protect These

The battered cardboard box my family had dumped on the freezing garage floor now rests in my daughter’s nursery.

I reinforced the bottom with heavy tape and set it beside her white wooden crib.

Inside are Tristan’s army shirts, his commendations, his favorite photographs, his silver wristband, and the small gray baby blanket he bought for our daughter before his final deployment.

One sunny afternoon while the baby slept, I walked into the nursery and found my mother kneeling quietly beside that box, a pack of archival photo sleeves in her hands, sitting motionless on the rug.