My parents threw me out at nineteen because I wouldn’t end my pregnancy. Ten years later I drove back with my son and knocked on the same door and I finally told them who his father was.

I wanted them to have to ask me.

He died inside those two weeks.

That letter said where he was. Ward and everything.

I posted it in the September, three months after, with nothing added, because I could not think what a person adds to that.

My father has never mentioned it and I have never asked whether he opened it.

My mother has. She told me in that kitchen that he reads it about twice a year, in the garage, and that he thinks she does not know.

She said: he keeps it in the