She folded the letter back into its envelope, slowly.

“I don’t want to write back.”

“Then you don’t have to.”

And she didn’t apologize after she said it.

That was new.

It was one of the first times in her life, I think, that Mira said no and then simply let it stand, the way a child who has always been safe says it — as if it were hers to say all along.