And in the June a woman at that group asked me straight out what it had turned out to be.
And I said: “Oh — something from his side of the family.”
Seven words, to a stranger, about my own daughter, with Marnie asleep on my front.
And I said it easily, and it came out without a flicker, and I noticed that about myself afterwards and did not like it.
The envelope, again.
I have still not opened it.
Fourteen months since that night and I have not opened it, and it is in the same shoebox, and now it is in a wardrobe in the room where the cot is.
And I have taken it out twice. In the April and in the September.
And both times I got as far as holding it.
And both times I put it back, and the second time I was angry with myself in a way I had not expected, and I said something out loud in an empty room.
