And the one on the top was written on Tuesday. That day. In handwriting that has almost nothing left of the handwriting I knew.
LORNA — 60
He had written it in the morning, from a hospital bed, with a stamp already on it, on the day the promise came due.
And underneath the whole stack, flat on the bottom of the box, folded into four, was a photocopy of a birth certificate.
And my forty-one years, since I have just described his in one paragraph.
I worked at Rowe’s Mill library for thirty-four years. I was assistant, then senior, then the one who ran it, and it closed in 2019 and is now a dental practice.
My father died in 1994. My mother had a stroke in 2003 and I looked after her in this house for eleven years, and she died upstairs in the front bedroom in 2014.
I have a niece I am close to and a cat and a book group and a raised bed with far too much rhubarb in it.
