“God sent you somewhere I could hear you.”
But a few months before her eighteenth birthday, something changed.
I went into her room one day with laundry, and Bunny was missing.
“Where’s Bunny?”
“I got rid of him,” Hope said. “Mom, I’m almost eighteen.”
I was surprised, but kids grow up. They let things go.
A few months before her eighteenth birthday, something changed.
On Hope’s eighteenth birthday, I woke before six.
I had baked her favorite lemon cake the night before and hidden it in the laundry room refrigerator because Hope had inherited my terrible ability to pretend not to look for surprises.
I put blue candles on the counter.
Then I walked outside to get the mail.
On Hope’s eighteenth birthday, I woke before six.
There was a white envelope between an electric bill and a grocery flyer.
No stamp.
No address.
On the back, written in black marker, was one impossible sentence.
