“Hello?” I answered, my voice barely there.
“Meryl,” she said, sounding shaken, “I’m so sorry to call like this, but I found something in my desk drawer today. I think you need to come to the school.”
My grip tightened around Owen’s shirt. “What is it?”
“It’s an envelope,” she said. “It has your name on it. It’s from Owen.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“From Owen?”
“Yes. It’s in his handwriting.”
I don’t remember hanging up. I only remember standing too fast, my heart pounding in my throat.
My mother found me in the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?”
“His teacher found something,” I whispered. “Owen left me something.”
Her face changed at once. Only another mother could understand that kind of hope and terror arriving in the same breath.
Charlie was at work. Since the funeral, work had become his hiding place. He left early, came home late, and said almost nothing. He didn’t even let me hug him anymore. At first, I told myself it was grief.
Lately, it felt like a door closing.
The school looked exactly the same when I arrived, and somehow that hurt.
Mrs. Dilmore met me near the front office, pale and careful. She held out a plain white envelope.
“I found it in the back corner of my desk drawer,” she said. “I don’t know how I missed it.”
On the front, in Owen’s handwriting, were two words:
For Mom.
My knees nearly gave out.
