There is no version of today where I am someone I want to be.
I knock on the back door.
Dolan opens it. Looks at the key. Looks at the letter from the bank's corporate office in my other hand. The letter is real.My contact in corporate is on something more durable than a retainer.
"Box eighty-three."
"You have ten minutes before my staff arrives."
"I will need three."
He lets me in.
We turn the keys together. The drawer slides out.
I take it to the table.
One thing inside.
A manila envelope. Yellowed at the edges. Sealed once and resealed once after that.
Margaret's handwriting in pencil on the front.
For the boy.
I do not breathe.
I open it.
Two pieces of paper.
The first is a photocopy of a hospital chart. February 12, 1988. St. Catherine's Hospital, Astoria. Maternity. Twin live births. The patient's last name was redacted in a hand that is not the original chart-keeper's.
Maria, written above the redaction in Margaret's pencil.
Twin A: Emilio. Twin B: Matteo.
Born nine minutes apart. Both healthy. Both crying.
I pick up the second piece of paper.
The birth certificate application.
Not a photocopy. The original.
The handwriting of a woman who has been writing in two languages her whole life and uses the second one only for forms. The letters are careful. A woman filling out a form in a hospital bed with two babies in the room and a husband who does not yet know what she is writing.
Mother: Maria Isabella Moretti.
Father: Vittorio Antonio Moretti.
Children: Emilio Vittorio Moretti and Matteo Antonio Moretti.
Born February 12, 1988.
I read it once.
I read it twice.
