I asked if there would be a funeral.
She said, “There’s nothing for you to do here.”
That night, when my mother stepped out to take a phone call, the nurse came back.
She slipped me a scrap of paper and whispered, “If you want to write something, I can try to send it with him.”
I had one thing left.
A little knitted blanket I had made in secret during the pregnancy. Blue wool. Yellow birds stitched into the corners. I had hidden it under the lining of my suitcase because it was the only thing that felt like mine and his.
I wrote one sentence on the paper.
Tell him he was loved.
The nurse took the note and the blanket.
The next day, they were gone.
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