“I know.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to say that like it covers anything.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I tried.”
“What does that mean?”
“I found Mom and Dad’s old number.”
“It was disconnected.”
“And then?”
“I wrote letters.”
I stared.
“You sent them?”
No answer.
“Lily.”
“No.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Then you didn’t write letters to us.”
“You wrote letters to yourself.”
She flinched.
Good again.
Again I hated myself.
But anger had nowhere else to go.
We eventually reached her apartment.
That somehow made everything worse.
Plants.
Books.
A yellow mug in the sink.
Shoes by the door.
Photographs on the wall.
Lily laughing with strangers.
Lily gardening.
Lily at dinner.
Lily on a hiking trail.
Ten years of proof that her life had not stopped when ours did.
I walked slowly around the living room.
“You garden?”
“A little.”
“You killed a cactus when we were seventeen.”
