“I kept more than I knew what to do with,” I said.
Ethan ran his thumb over his own crooked kindergarten handwriting.
Derek had made him wonder whether I’d throw his father away.
The boxes answered that.
Ethan and I spent hours on the living-room floor going through photographs, birthday cards, fishing gear, old concert tickets, and a ridiculous yellow tie Ryan had worn to our first Christmas together.
I told Ethan stories I’d forgotten I remembered.
How Ryan used a bag of flour to practice holding Ethan before he was born.
How he’d once locked himself out wearing only socks because he’d chased a raccoon off the porch.
How terrified he’d been the first time Ethan developed a fever.
Then I found an envelope inside an old tax folder.
It contained copies of the original records Ryan had collected against Derek.
Ryan hadn’t left them for me to discover as some final burden. He’d written one sentence across the envelope:
