The envelope had slipped below the collection tray. It was discovered only when the postbox came down for replacement. The address was legible, but the sender and recipient had both died.
Postal worker Sena traced the recipient's family through the return address and surviving correspondence. The letter invited a brother to come home after an argument. No one could know whether he had returned for another reason, because the family remembered several visits around that year.
The descendants read the invitation without treating it as proof that reconciliation never happened. Its non-delivery explained one missing piece of communication, not the whole relationship. Sena included a photograph showing where the envelope had been trapped so the delay would not acquire a more dramatic explanation later.
The new postbox had a different tray design. At the handover, nobody mentioned the letter publicly; it belonged to the family. Sena checked the corners before locking the box. An object intended to carry messages had accidentally kept one, and understanding that failure mattered more than turning the surviving words into a story larger than they could support.