Nine days.

I read it four times.

It was from a Tuesday in June that had already ended and couldn’t be fixed.

Then I looked at the signature on the wire sheet.

It was my name, every letter, in purple-black ink, slanting left the way my handwriting slants when I’m tired.

Only the letters were too even.

The V sat higher than a pen would leave it, and the tail of the last letter smeared where a stamp had lifted too fast.

I carried the page to the window.