Description
I didn’t cry when the package arrived.
I didn’t even open it right away.
It sat on the kitchen counter for three days, next to the cracked fruit bowl and a half-dead orchid I kept forgetting to water. Brown paper, worn at the corners. No return address. Just my name in a familiar script I hadn’t seen in five years.
The notebook was inside, though I didn’t know that yet. I could smell it before I touched it, damp earth, something sharp like mint, and that faint, feral scent I always associated with her. The way her skin used to carry cedar after long days in the woods. The way her hands always smelled like oil and wild things.
I made tea. Then I let it go cold.
I touched the envelope. Then walked away.
I made toast I didn’t eat.
Eventually, I gave in, not out of sentiment, but irritation. My curiosity is impatient and always slightly mean-spirited.
Inside the package was a worn leather notebook, swollen and misshapen from years of use. The spine was cracked, the edges buckled, the cover nearly black with age. I opened it and two brittle leaves drifted to the floor, one round and fragrant, the other skeletal and sharp-veined. I didn’t know their names, which made me feel both relieved and suddenly, inexplicably ashamed.
Beneath the notebook, folded into a square and tucked under a dried flower, was a note.
Calla,
If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t finish.
I tried, but the body has its own clocks, and mine began winding down before I expected. There are recipes missing, people I once loved, learned from, leaned on. Some of them still hold pieces of what I meant to preserve.
Finish it for me. One recipe from each.
You’ll find them where the roots still grow.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.