My legs decided before my anger did. I got out of the car and crossed the street, each step heavier than the last, and stopped at the bottom of the wooden ramp. The porch light buzzed above me. Through the screen door, I could hear my daughter’s voice, low and urgent, and my father answering slowly.

Then the door opened again. It wasn’t my father who came out first. It was Hannah, and she was holding a shoebox with both hands. A faded blue shoebox, its lid held on with a rubber band. My stomach dropped through the porch boards. I knew that box. I had pushed it to the very back of my closet shelf fifteen years ago and never once lifted the lid. “Mom,” Hannah said quietly, “you need to read these. All of them.”