The envelope has been on the hall table for twelve years. I'd pick it up, turn it over, set it back down.
In the ER, I'm the calm one. I can triage a crisis without blinking. But a letter from him? That's a different kind of bleeding I never learned to stop.
He left because I couldn't give him children. I was forty-two and the tests came back empty. He said he wanted a family. I said I understood.
I keep a flashlight by the back door. My childhood best friend's father, Mr. Phelps, taught me that. 'Always be ready for the dark,' he'd say. He was the one who told me love is a risk worth taking. I think about that every time I grab the flashlight to check the fence line.
Tonight a thunderstorm knocked out the power. I grabbed the flashlight, and my hand brushed the letter. Something in me said: now or never.
I sat on the porch, rain soaking the steps, and opened it. It wasn't an apology or a confession. Inside was a recipe card for his mother's chicken soup. He wrote, 'I still make this when I miss you.'
I don't know if I've learned to feel again. But I'm holding the recipe in one hand and the flashlight in the other. Maybe that's enough for now.