When I Was Four, My Mother Left Me Alone in a Church—Twenty Years Later She Returned Crying, “We Need You”

I had been four when they left.

What things could possibly have survived twenty years?

A doll?

A sweater?

They imagined reconciliation as restoring a paused photograph.

I was not four.

Florence had not been temporary.

My life had not been an intermission.

PART 38 — I DO NOT THROW IT IN BIOHAZARD

I handed the letter back.