I had lived there until I was fourteen.

Then my parents died in a car accident, and I entered foster care. Strangers packed our home while I sat in a county office holding a trash bag filled with clothes.

I never returned.

“I knew a guy,” I said. “Quiet. Dark hair.”

“Carl,” Mr. Baron murmured.

“No.”

The denial came too quickly.

The Carl I remembered had been a shy young man who lived with his grandfather and repaired bicycles behind their house.

The man I married laughed easily and argued enthusiastically about books.

Mr. Baron sat in the chair across from me.

“Carl lost both parents when he was seven,” he said. “Arthur raised him.”

I remembered Arthur’s rough hands and gentle voice.

I remembered bringing him soup when he had the flu because my mother believed no one should eat alone while sick.

Carl had stood behind the workshop door, watching.

Then other memories began returning.

Arthur’s handmade birdhouses.

The smell of cut wood.

A Saturday afternoon when an impatient customer confronted Carl about a bicycle.

Carl tried to explain, but his stutter grew worse.

The man became angry, pulled the bicycle from his hands, and stormed away.

Carl disappeared behind the workshop before anyone could stop him.

I found him sitting on the curb near the alley.

I did not tell him the incident was not his fault.

I simply sat beside him and started talking about a stray kitten I had discovered beneath our porch.

I told him it hated milk, loved shoelaces, and had bitten my father.

By the time we returned to Arthur’s workshop, Carl was smiling.

I had forgotten that afternoon.

Carl never had.

Mr. Baron placed the letter back into my hands.

I continued reading.

*You spoke to me as though nothing had happened.*

*I was certain one terrible moment had changed how everyone would see me.*

*Then you asked whether I thought the kitten needed a name.*

*You gave me normalcy when pity would have broken me.*

I pressed the paper against my mouth.

Mr. Baron opened his case again.

“This belongs to you.”

He placed a worn leather journal on the table.

Inside the cover, Carl had written my name.

The first entry was dated one year after I left Silver Oak Street.

*Selena, Age 15.*

*I hope high school is kinder than last year.*

The entries continued, one for every birthday.

*Age 18.*