“That’s you. The week you came home from the hospital.” My throat had closed most of the way. “I’ve never seen this photograph before in my life.”
She unfolded the letter. Her hands were steady for exactly the length of the first line.
“Read it,” Odalys whispered from the doorway, and the room, which had been chaos ten seconds earlier, went utterly still.
Wren’s voice cracked on the second sentence.
“To my sister, on whichever day someone finally decides to give you this. I won’t be there to walk you anywhere. But I asked someone I trust to make sure you got these words exactly when you needed them most, and I’m betting on a wedding, because I always thought you’d be dramatic about love the way you were dramatic about everything else.”
The room didn’t breathe. Priscilla had come back in from checking the car and stood frozen in the doorway, keys still in hand.
“He wrote this before he died,” I said quietly. “He must have. But I never — I don’t understand how it got here. Or who’s had it all this time.”
Wren looked at me, eyes already wet. “Mom, who kept this for eighteen years? Who even knew I’d get married someday, let alone today?”
I had no answer. My mind had already lurched backward, eighteen years, into a hospital corridor that still visited me in dreams.
***
