“Grandma liked these,” Sophie said.

Emily looked away.

They spent the afternoon working upstairs. Sophie found three shoeboxes filled with photographs, Christmas cards, and school reports. Daniel discovered a drawer containing every birthday card he and Emily had ever made for their mother.

There was one from 1989, decorated with an uneven drawing of a yellow dog.

Dear Mommy, I love you more than a hundred dinosaurs.

Daniel recognized his handwriting.

He was forty-six years old, and the sight of those badly formed letters made him sit down on the edge of the bed.

Sophie, sorting photographs beside him, looked over.

“Did you really want a dog that badly?”

“We wanted a dog every year.”

“Did you get one?”

“No. Your grandma said she already had two animals who couldn’t be trained.”

Sophie laughed.

Daniel turned the card over. Margaret had written the date in pencil and added a small note.

Daniel, age 9. He made this without help.

He placed it carefully in the box.

At the back of the cupboard, behind a stack of old blankets, Sophie found a wooden chest with brass hinges.

“What’s this?”

Daniel looked up.

The chest was familiar. It had once belonged to his grandfather, who kept fishing tackle inside it. Margaret had painted it green after his death.

Sophie lifted the lid.

Inside were eleven neatly wrapped parcels, each marked with a year.

2015.

The dates continued through 2025.

Beneath them lay an envelope addressed in Margaret’s handwriting.

For Daniel, when he comes home.

Daniel stared at it.

“Uncle Dan?”

He took the envelope but did not open it.

Sophie lifted one of the parcels. It was wrapped in faded red paper patterned with reindeer.

“Are these yours?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked at the labels.

“They’re all for you.”

Daniel sat on the floor beside the chest.

He opened the first parcel.

Inside was a small, inexpensive leather wallet. Tucked into one compartment was a receipt dated December 18, 2015. Margaret had written a note on the back.

Your old wallet was falling apart the last time I saw you. I thought you might need this one.

The second parcel contained a book about the architecture of New England. The third held a wool scarf.

In 2018, she had bought him a coffee mug with a painted lighthouse. In 2019, a fountain pen. In 2020, a pair of thick winter gloves.

Some gifts were practical. Others were things only a mother who remembered her son’s childhood might choose.

A small model airplane.

A tin of ginger biscuits.

A photograph of the family standing outside the house in the summer of 1996, when Daniel had been sixteen and Emily thirteen.

He opened the last parcel.

It contained a pair of knitted socks.