Eighteen Years After Ray Abandoned Him on a Dirt Road, Thomas Found His Mother’s Letter

“Nothing yet,” I said.

“Thursday, sit where they can see you.

That’s it.”

She nodded.

Then she took the coffee I hadn’t finished and poured it down the drain grate by the bay door.

“You always drank it the wrong way,” she said.

It was the first true thing anybody in my family had said to me in a week.

She folded the florist’s card in half and tucked it in her pocket.