Each envelope gave me a piece of something.
Thomas had asked me that the first day we met.
Not how my mother died.
Not how long I had been grieving.
What did she laugh like?
I had almost walked away.
Instead, I sat beside him in the waiting room and answered.
“Like she was trying not to.”
I had almost walked away.
Thomas smiled then.
“Those are the best ones.”
I was 29 when I met him, though I had felt much older for months.
After my mother died, my life did not collapse dramatically. It simply stopped moving.
I went to work.
