“Was she a waitress here?”

“She cleaned offices across the city,” I replied.

“She died when I was sixteen.”

Samuel took a slow breath.

“Then perhaps I have made a mistake.”

I told him that she had worked in restaurants before I was born, although she rarely talked about it.

He asked whether she ever kept a blue metal lunchbox with a dent in the lid.

I remembered the box in our kitchen cabinet with astonishing clarity.

My mother had stored sewing supplies inside it and told me never to throw it away.

Samuel put down his cup.

“That box belonged to the Common Table,” he said.

He explained that Miriam had been the youngest elected worker representative during a dispute over the trust’s records.

She had argued that every hourly employee deserved a copy of the rules governing the building.

The trust survived her challenge, but a later change in management made those papers difficult to find.

I said I had never heard of any trust or election.

Samuel did not look surprised.

“Most people who were supposed to remember were encouraged to forget,” he said.

I reached for the napkin in my pocket.

The paper felt suddenly heavier than it should have.

Chapter 4: The Blue Lunchbox

I lived in a narrow apartment above a laundromat on the west side of Chicago.

My mother had rented the place when the building still had wooden mailboxes in the lobby.

I had remained there because every move required a deposit I could not afford.

A shelf over the refrigerator held the blue lunchbox beneath a stack of old grocery coupons.

When I returned home that afternoon, I stood in the kitchen listening to the washing machines rumble below.

My roommate, Celia Moreno, came out of her bedroom and saw the folded apron in my hand.

She asked whether someone had spilled wine on a guest.

I told her I had been fired for buying breakfast for an old man.

She stared at me, then asked what kind of restaurant punished employees for purchasing its own food.

I tried to laugh, but my voice broke.

Celia pulled out a chair and waited while I explained the appearance of Robert Hale and Samuel Voss.

She worked for a legal-aid intake office and had a habit of listening without interrupting.

When I reached the part about my mother, she looked at the lunchbox above the refrigerator.

“Then we should look inside,” she said.

I took it down carefully.