The second week of November I came home from the library to discover an
envelope on my pillow. At first I thought someone had mailed me a tardy
condolence card, but Bryan always left mail for me on the foyer table, and the
piece in question was lacking both a stamp and an address. Curious, I
picked up the mystery envelope and inserted my finger underneath the flap—only
to remember Bryan telling me something at breakfast. Something about how
Bob would be coming over to the apartment that night while I was at the
library, to pick Bryan up for a basketball game.
My finger froze in place.
It couldn’t be. There had been no letters, no glass rocks,
no nothing since my first week at Bob’s apartment. But no one else was in
the habit of leaving unmarked envelopes on my pillow, and Bob, Tim's favorite
messenger, had come to the apartment that night. Who else could it
be from?
Cautiously I opened the envelope. As I withdrew the note-sized
piece of paper, sparsely dotted with handwriting that I had come to know better
than my own, I could feel my stomach seize up. What if the few words on
the page said something like I
hate you, or Just so you
know, I never loved you after all? What if he truly were gone
forever? Bryan had taken all of my pills away. I would have to
settle for a kitchen knife this time. Mentally composing the letter I would leave for Bryan, I lowered my eyes to read the two sentences on
the page:
Saturday, 8:00 p.m. It’s been
long enough.
I flipped the piece of paper over. On the other side was the
fragment of a math proof.
My eyes filling with tears, I went to my closet. I needed to
find something good to wear. I was going to see Tim—on Saturday, his 22nd birthday.
