“This is the letter the police found in her apartment ... after. I hadn’t seen it before, and the detective offered to send me a copy when I emailed him. It only incriminates T, if anyone at all, so I don’t think this is what she was talking about when she told me to find the letter ... then again, the way she was, who knows?” Mom tries to explain what I am holding in my hand but it does me no good. I know what I am holding, for sure. I am furious, I am on fire, to be overshadowed by this awful ... thing, I don’t know what to call it—an event? This was supposed to be my day. So I’m mad, but I’m still here, still on my way to pick up my gift. The world outside the windows is still moving, so I resign myself and just read the damn letter.
It’s a timeline, an inventory. The life and times of R. I am mentioned one or two times, and once she refers to my brother and myself as “very advanced.” Like VCRs or microwaves, I suppose. She explains why she has such a tough time with alcohol, work, and monogamy, and how she just got a restraining order against her baby’s father. There isn’t much as far as useful information goes, but to see her handwriting, it rockets me back into my thirteen year old body again. It’s not so much a memory as a complete sensation, a state of being. For a moment, I forget when I am, and where I am going.
I finish the letter, chilled through but no more enlightened than I was before. It’s not the answer to the mystery; it’s hardly even a clue. The police have had it for years, but it hasn’t helped them. All it does is bring my sister back into the flesh, just for a minute. This is proof positive that she was real, not just a story in the paper. It feels just like the time I saw her hairbrush, with some of her hairs still in it. It feels like a sucker punch.
