She had no business longing for it. But it sat in the window of a small secondhand shop on Newbury Street, and she passed it every morning on her way from the T to her job. There was something about it that called to her: the supple, timeworn leather, the meticulous detail, the era in which it had been fashioned. It was a classic trunk, perhaps at home in a first-class sleeping coach aboard the Orient Express—Paris to Istanbul—in the early twentieth century. It made Donna wonder about the hundreds, or thousands, of stories stored within.

If she’d listened to Aunt Elizabeth, the trunk might have been hers. “Don’t marry that man,” Elizabeth had said. “Instead, find one with money so your life will be more interesting.” She also had advised that if Donna only owned one sweater, she should make sure it was cashmere.

Years earlier, Donna had made the mistake of believing in true love, so she should have known to listen to her aunt. But though Jack was only a salesman of home cleaning products, he had proposed. At the time, he’d said he didn’t mind that Donna had once lived in a home for unwed mothers, then given up her baby for adoption. He’d said he didn’t mind, but after they were married and had a child of their own, he apparently felt otherwise. He left Donna with very little money and with Kevin, who by then was four. The pittance of child support that Jack provided trickled off after a while, though Donna didn’t let Kevin know that. She took a job as a receptionist at a radio station where the pay was low, but her boss had suggested that one day she might be made office manager.

Aside from keeping Kevin healthy, the promotion became her only wish. That, and to own the Louis Vuitton trunk, which Donna knew had been made in Paris. After all, she’d paid close attention during countless hours of browsing for antiques with Aunt Elizabeth, until Alzheimer’s had shoplifted her aunt’s mind. At the store on Newbury Street, the tag read $400, so it was doubtful the storeowner knew the trunk’s worth. Still, the price was equivalent to a month’s rent. Out of Donna’s league. Unless she found a way.

Then, on an ordinary Tuesday morning when she passed the shop, the Louis Vuitton was gone. She tried to tell herself it was just one more loss. And that, like other losses she’d endured, it must not have been meant for her.

* * *