But a part of him seemed to have disappeared with his sister.
Then, nine days before graduation, I came downstairs at midnight and found him sitting at the kitchen table.
The red dress was spread in front of him.
I stopped in the doorway.
“Eli?”
He looked up.
His eyes were swollen.
“I have to tell you something.”
He reached inside his backpack and pulled out an envelope.
My name wasn’t on it.
His was.
In Maya’s handwriting.
She had given it to him three days before she died.
I hadn’t known.
Neither had their father.
Eli opened it and handed me the letter.
I read the first few lines.
Then I had to sit down.
Maya had known there was a chance she wouldn’t make it to graduation.
She had also known exactly what that day would do to me.
She wrote that she couldn’t stand the thought of me sitting in an auditorium staring at the empty space where one of my children should have been.
