“Why would she have two?”

“I don’t know,” I say, removing more rubber bands. “Whoa, you won’t believe this.”

“What?”

“Mama’s got two life-insurance policies. Daddy’s the beneficiary on one, and all of us are on the other.”

“What?”

“Would you stop saying that? Damn! I don’t believe this woman. Daddy’s is for twenty thousand and the other is for fifty.”

“Thousand?”

“What do you think, Janelle? Mama’s had the one for us for . . . almost fourteen years.”

“You mean she’s been paying these big premiums all this time? I bet Daddy doesn’t know about ours.”

“Looks like she’s been paying about sixty or seventy dollars a month. Mama. You are too much,” I say, folding the policies back. “I don’t want my part, I can tell you that much right now. I don’t need it.”

“Well, I do,” she says. “And you know Lewis does. I don’t know about Miss Lottery Winner, but what are these?” she asks, holding up another bunch of dingy white envelopes that I have to scrunch to read what’s written on them because it’s in pencil and obviously a long time ago. “This one says ‘Paris’s first tooth.’ And this one ‘Lewis’s first tooth.’ ‘Charlotte’s . . .’ ‘Janelle’s . . .’ And Lewis’s braid from his first haircut!”

“Can we open them?” Janelle asks.

“No! We still have quite a few purses to go. So keep looking.”

And she does.

“Check this out!” Janelle screams.

“What what what?” I ask, leaning way over and dropping Mama’s black straw clutch—which feels empty anyway—into my lap.

“All of our report cards! Since kindergarten, Paris. Since kindergarten,” she groans, and we’re crying again, but for some reason these tears feel good. Very good. And we keep looking. When I pick up a manila envelope, it slips from my grip and out comes a slew of mostly black-and-white baby pictures of Charlotte, and then when she’s in school, and they’re in color up until she graduated. She was always the prettiest. No doubt about it. And so smart. She could’ve done anything she wanted to with her life. I don’t know why she hates working at the post office so much. What she does is important.

There are four more envelopes like this one, and I assume they’re more about us kids. I peek inside each one until I see pictures of Mama. I shake them out onto the carpet, and there she is in all her facets. One shot is a black-and-white photo with a group of other black girls; Mama’s standing out front, leaning on a baseball bat with both hands, her head is cocked to the side. Her hair is parted down the middle with two thick braids sticking out on the sides. She must be fourteen, fifteen, maybe.

“She looks like you, Paris.”

“She looks like Charlotte,” I say.

“Look! Here’s Mama and Daddy when they got married!”

The two of us just stare at them. They look like they’re really in love. Mama’s lips are red. Her hair is auburn, pulled back in a French twist. She’s wearing something that’s navy-and-white polka dots. Even Daddy looks sexier than I ever imagined, with a genuine grin on his face. As he looks down at Mama with his arm draped softly over her shoulder, I can almost see why she loved him. I’ve never seen them look this soft together. Wow. There are no more pictures of them together. Just of her pregnant, and one of her bowling. That one looks recent. Like it was taken on her birthday. It was, because here’s her and Shanice eating cake. “Keep looking,” I say to Janelle.