The pages had been folded inside a no. 10 envelope and left on the porch of my childhood home. There was no return address or sender: just my name, written across the envelope with a ballpoint pen. It was July 4, 2015. I was visiting home, in Victoria, for the second time since moving to England. I unfolded the contents, my eyes darting to the name at the bottom of the page. It was signed by our neighbour Lynne.
Lynne had lived up the hill for as long as I could remember. Or, rather, she lived across the road and up a steep driveway. I had always felt warmly toward her and her husband, Hans, the only man on our block, aside from my father, to wear a beret. I didn’t know the couple well, though they were part of what my dad had called, with wry affection, “the voisinage,” a rotation of neighbours who hosted unpretentious dinner parties.
