I opened the envelope the next morning.
The one marked:
Open only when you’re too angry to cry.
Frank was asleep in his chair by the window.
His chin had dropped to his chest.
One hand still rested on the armrest like he meant to get up in a minute and had simply misplaced the strength.
I stood at the kitchen counter with that envelope in both hands and felt something inside me go very still.
I told myself I should wait.
I told myself opening it while he was still breathing in the next room felt like reading the ending of my own life before I had to.
Then I remembered the way he’d labeled the breaker box.
The soup.
The flashlight.
The side of the medicine cabinet.
And I thought, if he wanted it found later, he would have hidden it better.
So I slid my finger under the flap.
Inside was one folded sheet of notebook paper.
No flourish.
No speech.
Just Frank’s square handwriting.
Steady in some places.
Shaky in others.
At the top he’d written:
I took one breath.
And what came next made me feel like the floor had dropped out from under me.
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