"I have permission from the mayor's office." She slid a folded letter across the polished oak. "It's for my thesis. Civilian life under occupation."

He handed her the original letter.

As she packed her bag, she hesitated. "There's one letter missing. From the '44 folder. Box seven."

On the last day, she returned the final folder. "Thank you, Signor Attolini. You've been… solid."

"Why do you need that one?" Marco asked, his voice barely a straight line anymore.

"Your grandmother," Marco said, "was my mother. I never knew I had a niece."

"You keep it now," he said. "Some stories are too solid to stay locked away."

Marco's heart, a machine he believed long rusted, misfired. He knew the letter. He had removed it twenty years ago, when he first processed the collection. It was a note written by a resistance courier to his wife, the night before he was executed. The courier's name: Marco Attolini. His father.