I unfolded the first page with trembling hands. “Dear Margaret,” it began. “Our Lily was born on the day written above, and I have kept one thing from you since the morning we lost her. I was afraid it would break you, and then I was afraid it would break us.” My breath caught. The young man sat quietly across from me, his hands folded.

Below the letter lay a small hospital bracelet and a folded card in a nurse’s handwriting. I read the card twice before it made sense. It said that a woman named Ruth Calloway had held Lily in her last hour, because Walter and I had been sent out of the room. The final line of Walter’s letter read, “Ruth wrote to us, Margaret, and I never answered.”