The letter was in my mother’s careful handwriting, and my hands shook as I read on. “Walter did not abandon us. The night he vanished, a fire broke out at the brick cannery where he worked. He pulled a boy of nineteen through a window, went back for two coworkers, got them out, and then the roof fell. That boy was Thomas.” I looked at the photograph again. Thomas was the young man beside my father, smiling in front of the building.

The next line stopped my breath. “Thomas lived, and your father’s last request was one secret, which I kept for thirty-nine years.” Footsteps sounded in the doorway. I looked up and saw the young cleaner holding his cart, pale, with tears already on his face. “Ma’am,” he whispered, “please let me explain before you read the last page.”