Miss Emma Stone.
Every single one was sealed. Never opened.
Under them, in a separate bundle, were my letters. The ones I’d written to him at sixteen. Also sealed. Also never sent.
I sat down on the attic floor in the same spot where I used to sit and do my homework, and I counted.
Grandpa had written me a hundred and forty-one letters.
My mother had kept every single one. In the room she’d given me. Ten feet from where I used to sleep.
I didn’t cry. I was past crying. I just sat there with the letters in my lap and felt something inside me go very quiet and very hard.
Then I took out my phone and photographed every envelope. The postmarks. The dates. The tape on the lid with my mother’s handwriting.
Then I put everything back exactly the way I’d found it.
