Some part of me — the child who still wanted her parents — left that one window open.

And a year later, the week of our first anniversary, a plain envelope came in shaky handwriting.

My mother’s.

I sat at the island of the beautiful house Lennox and I had just closed on, with money I had painstakingly saved again, and opened it.

No card.

One page of lined notebook paper. For a long time I blamed you for taking the money away.