vacation pictures.
She commented on someone’s banana bread.
Three exclamation points.
A recipe request.
She was awake.
She was reachable.
She was choosing in real time where her attention would go.
And it was not going toward the message about her granddaughter’s cancer.
That week, I learned read receipts are their own kind of answer.
They simply lack the decency to say the words.
I placed the phone face down beside a cafeteria coffee I couldn’t taste.
There was still one number left.
Mark.
Kora’s father.
Theo and Wyatt’s father
