On Sundays, Angela’s the sole staff member, but it’s usually a sleepy day anyway, particularly in the fall and winter months when tourism slows to a glacial crawl. After the new inventory is sorted, she moves on to the task of processing the unclaimed holds. This is one of the most frustrating chores on Angela’s list. Eight times out of ten, the furniture is reserved by an eager out-of-town “antique hunter” （usually self-proclaimed and newly minted） who journeyed into the city with rich friends on a shopping excursion. They shiver with glee at a prospective purchase, then demand a hold be placed so they can come back with a truck of appropriate size with which to haul away the object of that Saturday’s treasure hunt. And almost every time, the shopper then dodges Angela’s phone calls long enough that she releases the hold, and the would-be buyer is spared the shame of admitting the sale was a passing fancy. This process means that Angela spends a good portion of her Sunday mornings tearing pink hold stickers off the items and leaving them in their cozy corners of the shop, where they can await the next near-purchase tease, like aging orphans.
First on the list is a small three-drawer dresser. Angela knows exactly which one it is, and wanders to the very back of the shop. Approaching it, she notices the bright pink slip of paper that indicates a hold stick-tacked to the front of the top drawer. She yanks the slip of paper off, causing the dresser to lurch and the drawer to slide out a notch.
“Ah shit. Ouch!”
Coffee splashes over her hand. She licks it off, then peers through the crack, glimpsing a curious spot of white inside the darkness of the drawer. She casts her eyes around for a safe place to set her mug. She uses the pink hold slip in lieu of a coaster and places her coffee on a nearby bookshelf, then pulls open the drawer.
Just then, the bells above the door jingle, welcoming the first customer of the day. With a knot of intrigue in her stomach, Angela shuts the drawer and navigates her way back to the front, carefully stepping over and around piles of haphazardly stacked books.
“Hello!” she calls.
“Hi, there,” says a teenage girl with mousy brown hair and hunched shoulders.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Angela asks, pulling her scarf closer around her shoulders. A wintry draft has swept in with the girl, which irritates Angela, somewhat unfairly, she knows. She wants to get back to the drawer.
“Not really. I’m just browsing, but thanks.”
“Certainly,” Angela replies. “Let me know if you need anything.”
The girl smiles vaguely and turns to inspect the nearest bookshelf. It’s the politest possible snub, but Angela takes it as a welcome dismissal. She returns to the dresser and opens the top drawer again.
Reaching in, she removes a heavy marble box and places it gently on the weathered floorboards. It was the white stone that caught her attention. Nearly all the antiques in the shop are made of some variety of wood. The rest is mostly brass and silver: tarnished picture frames with intricate Victorian scrolling, hand mirrors that call to mind Regency-era puffy hairstyles capped with lace bonnets, and collectible teaspoons with faded crests and intricate familial coats of arms.
Angela hasn’t seen anything made of marble since she began working at Thompson’s, and this is a beautiful ivory stone shot with sparkling grey ripples that some antique hunter may actually want to buy. Abandoning her lukewarm coffee, Angela carries the box to the front desk. She glances up to check the browsing status of her single patron, then perches on the bar-height stool and flips open the gold clasp of the box.
Inside is a stack of what appears to just be yellowed paper, but as she removes one of the pages, she notices the elegant cursive handwriting on the front of the top envelope.
Letters. A stack of them. Angela lifts them out one by one, counting—five letters. All old, by the look of them. Not surprising, she thinks, given that this is an antiques shop. That, and the fact that no one really sends letters much anymore. That aging, once-bustling pursuit is now undertaken solely by stubborn, overperfumed elderly ladies.
She holds one of the letters up to the light flooding in from the storefront windows. Unlike its fellows, which are naked of their former envelopes and appear to be mostly bank statements, this one is still sealed, the edge along the flap slightly bubbled, as though the glue had been wet with too much moisture. The stamp looks modern. The slanting cursive writing in the top left-hand corner of the envelope lists the return addressee as one Mrs. Frances Mitchell. It’s addressed to Ms. Nancy Mitchell, and something stirs behind Angela’s navel as she reads the address of the antiques shop.
The writing looks shaky, though Angela can tell it had, in decades long past, been beautiful, graceful penmanship.
BANG!
Her heart shoots into her throat. She looks over to see the mousy-haired girl muttering an apology as she bends to scoop up a large book. Angela manages a small smile, her pulse still pounding, but the girl waves goodbye with a mumbled, “Thank you,” and the bells above the door jingle as she exits the shop, ushering in another gust of cold air.
Relieved to be alone again, Angela runs her fingers over the edge of the envelope seal, weighing her intrigue. The date stamped in red ink across the top of the envelope says the letter was posted in 2010. And yet it remained unopened. Who had it been intended for? Did the letter simply go astray from its destination? But no, the shop’s address is indeed scrawled across the front, along with the mysterious name of Nancy Mitchell.
It was destined for this address.
Angela knows it’s technically a crime to open another person’s mail, but her curiosity has bested her moral code. She plucks the brass letter opener from the heavily ink-speckled Mason jar they use as a pen cup, slides the tip underneath the corner of the envelope flap, and, with a satisfying tear, slits it open. She pulls the letter out and unfolds it with the tips of her fingernails, as though avoiding the traces of incriminating fingerprints. The paper is heavy and lightly textured. Expensive. Purchased by someone who wrote a lot of letters and took the time to make sure they carried weight.
Intrigued, Angela begins to read, eyes darting back and forth across the page underneath her dark bangs:
Dear Nancy,
It is my intent that this letter reaches you after I am gone. I instructed my lawyer Mr. Klein to post this upon my passing. I am sorry for this, and I have my reasons, but I wanted to ensure you were made aware of certain facts pertaining to your own history.
Nancy, I have loved you as much as a mother can love her daughter. I have done the best I know how, been the best mother I could. Although, my dear, I am human, and therefore imperfect.
There is no way to tell you this other than to simply write the words: your father and I are not your biological parents. We adopted you as a baby.
We tried for years, prayed hard and daily for God to send us a child, but it was not to be. And so we sought out a baby girl to adopt, and were referred by our family doctor to St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers here in Toronto.
You were born on the day you know to be your birthday: April 25th, 1961. We were told your birth mother and father were a young couple, only teenagers, who were unmarried and had lost their way. They had no money, and could not afford to raise you. They said your mother gave you up willingly for adoption, with a heavy heart and a hope that we could provide you with a brighter future than she could, young and poor as she was. Her story broke our hearts, but we thanked God for her selflessness and for bringing us this most precious gift. Our celebration was her grief.