The name on the envelope isn't one she recognizes. The handwriting is her mother's — the tight capitals, the way the R leans like it's listening around a corner. No stamp. No postmark. Sealed, addressed, and left in the drawer with the insurance papers and the spare key to a lock she's already changed.
She holds it up to the kitchen light. Two pages, maybe three. The ink shadows through but won't resolve into words.
Her sister would say open it. Her sister would already have it photographed, googled, cross-referenced against the Christmas card list. Her sister processes grief the way she processes expense reports: quickly, with categories.
She puts the envelope on the counter and finishes the dishes.
The apartment is almost empty now. Three days of sorting have reduced forty years to eleven boxes, a donation pile, and an argument about the standing lamp. The envelope sits on the granite like a place setting for someone who isn't coming to dinner.
She dries her hands. Picks it up again. The seal is old — she could open it with her thumb and call it an accident.
Instead she puts it in the box marked PAPERS, between the 2019 tax return and a birthday card her mother received from someone who signed only the initial J.
On the drive home she thinks about the name. It could be anyone. A friend from the years before she was born. A doctor. A lawyer handling something she doesn't know about. A person her mother loved or owed money to or wronged or forgave.
The envelope will be in the box. The box will be in the garage. And every time she walks past it, the apartment she just emptied will still be full.