IN AN UNDATED letter from 1944, my father wrote, After a long time at sea, we hit land. The trip over was warm and crowded. I did not get seasick, but many were hit hard. The ceremonies crossing the equator were both cruel and fun. New to me are the natives: fuzzy-haired, small, black, and barefooted people with cloths around their waists. They sell wares in shells and bamboo—or try to. I can say we are somewhere in New Guinea. I write this by candlelight.

INGA’S FACE WAS flushed with excitement when she opened the door. Her eyes were wide and she spoke quickly. “I found something through the Hall of Records in Blue Wing. I don’t know what it means yet, but it’s interesting. I’ve got a record of a marriage between an Alf Odland and a Betty Dettling in 1922. A year later they have a child, but the name on the birth certificate is not Lisa, but Walter Odland. There’s no record of a Lisa being born to those two people at all. Pappa was fifteen and Lisa had to have been at least his age, probably older, if she was working away from home, so something’s wrong about this.”

“Maybe it’s another Odland.”

“The only one in town,” Inga said. “She may have been a child from an earlier marriage. Maybe he divorced his first wife, or she died. Divorce was very common among immigrants on the prairie, of course this was later, but it still would be unusual for a girl to go with her father, not her mother, don’t you think, so death is more likely. Alf Odland died in 1962. Betty lived on until 1975. The good news is that Walter is still alive. I called the listed number, but no one answered. He’s an old guy without an answering machine, but I’m hoping to talk to him.”

A sudden feeling of reluctance came over me, a sense that we were encroaching on something that might wheel around and slap us. I was aware that it was odd for me—who has listened to so many confessions of betrayal, misery, and cruelty—to shy away from the story hidden behind a few sheets of paper in a hall of records, but the analyst as a person who can hear anything is made possible because of the role played, the position occupied in the room. Outside that room, I occupy another territory: brother, son, friend. “Are you sure you want to pursue this?”

“Don’t you?”

“I’m thinking of Walter Odland. What if your questions . . .” I was lying. I wasn’t thinking of Walter Odland until that second. “No, that’s not it. Inga, I think I’m worried about what we’ll find.”

“I keep thinking I’ll mention it to Mamma, and then I don’t. Something stops me, a fear of hurting her, I guess. She’s suffering as it is. Still, I want to know. I think you do, too.”