A child’s crayon drawing.
A coffee receipt.
A paper napkin with a phone number written on it and crossed out.
None of it made sense.
I opened three more.
Each envelope gave me a piece of something, but never enough to name it.
By the time I reached Waiting Room, my hands had stopped shaking.
My chest hadn’t.
Inside was a hospital visitor sticker from almost a year earlier.
On the back: “She said her mother laughed like she was trying not to.”
I went cold.
That was me.
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.
I paid bills.
I answered messages with little smiling faces.
