Neither did I.
But on the drive home, one question wouldn't leave me alone.
What had happened to all those letters?
I barely slept.
Early the next morning, I went into my basement.
After my father died, I'd packed what remained of his office into boxes. Most hadn't been opened in decades.
I found his old desk at the back.
The bottom drawer was locked.
I almost ignored it.
Then I remembered something.
My father kept a tiny brass key inside an old tobacco tin.
The tin was still in one of the boxes.
The key fit.
Inside the drawer were tax records, receipts and photographs.
And underneath them was a stack of envelopes.
The first had my name on it.
So did the second, and the third.
Some had Australian stamps.
Some German.
Some Portuguese.
I sat on the basement floor.
Twenty-three letters.
Most were unopened letters my friends had sent me.
