She can’t think of how to word any of this without sounding ridiculous (and what if they don’t believe her?). She wants them to know the facts. The pictures are factual; there’s no arguing with them. Matt’s is a kindergarten photo, and he looks undeniably like Dermot: blond-haired and broad-faced. Katherine’s is a portrait made at a professional studio and paid for by Uncle Phil. In it, she’s a happy, round-headed, universal baby, though in reality Katherine is capable of expressions weighted with annoyance and cynicism. Some nights, when Teresa comes home from work and extends her arms toward her daughter, Katherine pulls away, looks insulted, hugs her ballerina doll as if Teresa means to steal it, and gives her a scowl that seems to say, Why are you bothering me? Teresa writes their names and respective ages on the backs of the photos and stacks them next to the envelope she’s already addressed.

You don’t know who I am, she writes. We’ve never met. But I’m your daughter-in-law, Teresa Malloy Ragazzino, and I’m trying to reach my husband.

There’s a war starting up, but it feels very far away. Nearly everything outside of her day-to-day life has become remote. She’s paid almost no attention to the holidays this year, completely skipped Easter, forgotten her own birthday and has barely managed to celebrate the children’s. July 4th slipped her mind entirely, and when the fireworks blasted over the Capitol she thought, just for a moment, that they were under Russian or even Chinese attack. Because Uncle Phil has gotten her a subscription to the Washington Post she reads the headlines while she makes breakfast each morning. Winston Churchill dead. T. S. Eliot dead. Stan Laurel dead. Lyndon Johnson looking edgy as he’s sworn in again and Robert Kennedy still looking sad, but excited too, wading through a field of outstretched hands. “You’re keeping up with this, right?” Uncle Phil asked her one evening. He sat at the aluminum table that took up part of the living room, touching one of his thick fingers to a headline.

3,000 Marines to Da Nang to Fight Vietcong

“I looked at it.” Teresa was making a sandwich for Matt to take to school the next day.