Court notices.
Returned envelopes.
Then Leo picked up a photograph.
It was his tenth birthday.
He stood beside a crooked cake I had tried to decorate myself.
“You remember this?”
“Unfortunately.”
He smiled.
“You spelled birthday wrong.”
“I was exhausted.”
“You wrote BIRHTDAY.”
“You still ate it.”
He turned the photograph over.
His smile disappeared.
“Do you think she can win?”
I wanted to tell him no.
Instead, I kept my promise.
“I don’t know.”
He stared at the boxes.
“What happens to Noah and Mia?”
“I fight.”
“And if they make Mia go?”
“I fight again.”
He nodded.
Then he saw the small envelope.
The old one.
The one that had once contained my graduate school acceptance letter.
“What is that?”
I held it for a second.
“Something your mother left.”
Leo went still.
“What?”
“A note.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“She wrote a note?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“You were eight.”
“I’m twenty.”
“I know.”
“What does it say?”
I hesitated.
Then handed it to him.
Leo unfolded the paper.
I watched his face as he read.
Anger first.
Then pain.
Then something worse.
