Chapter 5
I attended meetings. I reviewed contracts. I answered emails. I learned the names of people in the legal department and discovered that the building’s elevator stopped on every floor unless someone pressed the express button.
At lunch, I walked along the harbor and watched the water move beneath the gray sky.
I kept expecting grief to follow a schedule.
It did not.
Some mornings, I woke with the strange belief that I had dreamed everything. I would reach for my phone, ready to message the preschool and ask whether Grace had eaten breakfast.
Then I would see the urn.
Other days, memories rose without warning.
Grace singing to herself while brushing her teeth.
Grace placing stickers on Alexander’s expensive briefcase.
Grace asking why the moon followed our car.
When those memories came, I let them stay.
I did not want to spend the rest of my life turning them into something I had to survive.
Three weeks after I arrived in Toronto, I received a letter.
It was forwarded from our Chicago address.
The envelope was cream-colored, addressed in Grace’s careful preschool handwriting.
Mommy and Daddy.
I recognized the letters immediately.
Grace had practiced writing our names on scraps of paper. The M leaned too far to the right, the D had a round belly, and the y in Daddy was almost unrecognizable.
My hands began to shake.
I carried the envelope to the kitchen table and sat down.
For several minutes, I could not open it.
It was not the fear of what might be inside.
It was the knowledge that nothing inside could change what had happened.
Finally, I opened it.
A folded sheet of pink construction paper slid out.
On the front, Grace had drawn three figures beneath a yellow sun.
One was tall, with long brown hair.
One was tall, with dark hair.
The smallest figure stood between them, wearing a red dress.
I pressed my fingers to the paper.
Inside, Grace had drawn a house, a heart, and what looked like a crooked row of flowers.
Beneath the drawing, in uneven letters, she had written:
FOR MOMMY AND DADDY
LOVE GRACE
A tiny note had been attached to the back.
I recognized the handwriting before I read it.
It belonged to Mrs. Alvarez, Grace’s preschool teacher.
Emily,
Grace made this for Family Day. She was very excited about giving it to both of you. I placed it in her cubby because I didn’t want it to get lost in her backpack.