Lines of addresses unfurled like a string of footprints across a frozen field. Some were neat and sensible—firstname.lastname@company.com—others were fragments: letters mashed together with numbers, old nicknames, a university handle from a decade ago. Each entry felt like a tiny door: a student who once sent frantic questions at midnight, a vendor who’d courted her with samples, a colleague who’d shared lunch and gossip between meetings. She read them as if reading an old yearbook, reconstructing faces she hadn’t realized she remembered.