Kevin held the envelope out again.
I took it.
The paper felt thin and brittle beneath my fingers. There was a faint crease running down one corner, and the flap had been opened and closed so many times that its edges had softened. My eyes moved to the handwriting on the front.
To Mom.
Two words.
Two words written by my daughter twenty years earlier.
I knew that handwriting better than I knew my own. I could recognize it on a birthday card, a grocery list, a note left beside the telephone. Elena’s letters had always leaned slightly to the right, as though each word were trying to reach the next one before it had finished being written.
My breath caught.
« Where did you get this? » I whispered.
Kevin gave a short, humorless laugh. « That’s what you want to ask me? »
