And then I saw the document clipped to the back of the photographs, and it began, slowly, to reframe everything.

It was an official-looking legal summons, on the letterhead of a law firm with a downtown address, dense with formal language.

And at the bottom of it, on the signature line, was the name of the attorney who had issued it, a senior corporate lawyer, printed and signed in a firm confident hand.

The name was Arthur Vance.

My own last name.

Looking back at me from the bottom of a legal document I did not understand, in a file full of photographs of my life.