“Loose brick. She said you would remember which one immediately.”
I did.
Behind the brick sat a small tin wrapped in faded cloth.
Inside was an ultrasound photograph, its edges worn soft. Beneath it lay Cara’s final letter.
She came back because I was the only person she could imagine spending her life with.
I held the image under the greenhouse lights and felt grief split into two losses, both shaped by her silence.
The letter said she had not returned expecting forgiveness.
When the diagnosis came, she finally understood that fear had made every major decision for her since college. She refused to let fear choose once more.
She came back because I was the only person she could imagine spending her life with.
Mara’s face softened for the first time.
“Five days were never meant to replace ten years,” she wrote. “They were the only honest days I had left to offer.”
I lowered the letter.
“I wish she had trusted me.”
Mara’s face softened for the first time.
“So did she.”
Cara had loved me.
Neither of us spoke after that.
I finished the remaining letters over three weeks.
Some were tender. Some were selfish. Some made me miss her so badly I could not stand it.
Others made me furious enough to leave the apartment and walk until my legs hurt.
Cara had loved me.
“Do you hate her?”
Cara had harmed me.
Both truths remained, and neither erased the other entirely.
Mara visited often, usually carrying coffee and refusing to offer easy comfort.
“Do you hate her?” she asked once.
“Sometimes.”
“Anything simpler would be a lie.”
“Do you forgive her?”
“Sometimes.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“It is.”
She nodded.
I copied every letter.
“Good. Anything simpler would be a lie.”
