On top lay a pair of tiny brown baby shoes, the leather cracked and soft, with my name written inside in my mother’s handwriting. Beneath them were eighty-four envelopes, rubber-banded in bundles of twelve, each one labeled with a month and a year in Dad’s blocky print. The first said January, the month after I turned nineteen. The last said December, two weeks before he died.

At the very bottom sat a savings passbook from the credit union downtown, with my name typed on the front. I opened it with shaking fingers. Every page held the same deposit, $350, on the first of every month, never missed once. I turned to the last page and stared at the balance until the numbers blurred. Then I saw the folded letter tucked inside the back cover. It began with words my father had never once said to me. “Son, forgive me.”