Always.
He brought yellow roses.
“Predictable,” I said.
“You like predictable.”
At ninety-one, yes.
We sat by the window.
I asked:
“Do you ever wish you hadn’t opened the box?”
He smiled.
“Sometimes.”
That surprised me.
“Really?”
“The first year, yes.”
“Why?”
“Before the box, I thought I had no family.”
“And after?”
“I learned I had one that lost me.”
Worse in some ways.
Absence hurts differently when you discover it contained choices.
He continued:
“But if I hadn’t opened it, I’d still be living inside a lie other people made.”
That mattered more.
I asked:
“What did you think would be in there?”
He laughed.
“Money.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“Disappointed?”
“No.”
He looked toward the flowers.
“The money came later.”
Then:
“The important thing was the photograph.”
“Not Rachel’s letter?”
“That too.”
“Then why the photograph?”
He thought.
“Because it proved someone in that family had held space for my mother in a room.”
