For one terrible second, I thought something had gone wrong.
My hand went straight to my stomach.
Our daughter shifted beneath my palm.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing with the donation,” he said quickly. “This is something else.”
He looked exhausted, but there was something more in his expression, something almost personal.
Then he brought his hand forward.
He was holding a thick envelope.
My name was written across the front in Mark’s handwriting.
I recognized the slight slant of the letters immediately.
My knees almost gave out.
There are things grief prepares you for badly, and things it does not prepare you for at all.
I had prepared myself to hear Mark’s name spoken in the past tense.
I had prepared myself to go home to his shoes by the door, his coffee mug in the cabinet, and the half-finished nursery we had planned together.
I had not prepared myself to see handwriting that had been made by a living hand only weeks earlier.
