“Don’t mistake stillness for peace.”
His smile was faint.
“You’ll know.”
Then he slept.
He never woke up.
And the green backpack remained open at my feet like a map without any roads.
I didn’t open the notebook that night.
I took the backpack home, placed it on my kitchen table, and spent almost two hours walking around it.
The apartment felt unbearably quiet.
My mother’s mug was still sitting near the sink, even though she had been gone for nearly a year.
I had never moved it.
I told myself it was because I wasn’t ready.
At midnight, I opened another envelope.
Airport.
Inside was a boarding pass from nine years earlier.
On the back: “He called his daughter from Gate 14.”
Then Laundromat.
A dryer sheet folded into a square.
“We both waited for the blue blanket. She said it still smelled like home.”
