Sunlight filters through the small circular window at the far end, catching on motes suspended in the still air. Below, the rest of the house is quiet. The kind of quiet that follows a funeral, even when the funeral was years ago.

Y/n's father had been a man who kept everything. Receipts from restaurants long closed. Newspaper clippings about cases he never solved. Letters he meant to answer. Photographs of people whose names Y/n had never learned.

The cardboard box in front of Y/n is labeled Personal – Thomas Vale in his own handwriting. The ink has faded to a brownish shade, but the letters are still legible, precise, and deliberate.

Inside: notebooks. A leather-bound journal with a broken clasp. A fountain pen he always used. A small wooden box containing his wedding ring, which Y/n's mother had placed there after the divorce. A stack of unopened mail.

And then, at the very bottom, beneath everything else.

A folder.

Simple. Manilla. Unlabeled. Tucked so carefully between the cardboard flaps that it could not have ended up there by accident.

Inside: a single document.

A letter.

Dated three weeks after the official date of his death.