“We found the notebook,” June said. “The one in the kitchen drawer.”
I shut my eyes and gripped the camera so tightly that I heard the plastic creak. I thought of the gas receipt note, still folded in my wallet. I thought of Patricia, and every birthday I had spent at that warped kitchen table with a pen in my hand, writing to three girls who were already asleep.
Back then, I told myself they might read it someday or they might not, but either way, I had written what needed to be said.
Then June began to read.
“To my girls. You’re one-year-old today. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, and I don’t know if I’ll still be doing this right by then, but I wanted to write it down, anyway.”
A chill ran straight down my spine.
I knew those words. I knew their rhythm, and I knew the man who had written them alone at a kitchen table above a hardware store, with three sleeping babies in one crib because he couldn’t afford three.
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