Claire's voice had the garage in it. You could hear the slight boom of a small space, the tick of her car's cooling engine or of the water heater, a distant lawnmower that might have been the same neighbor or another one, years earlier, insisting on grass. She cleared her throat. She laughed once, under her breath, the old downward laugh.
"David. It's me. I'm in the garage because the nurse is in the kitchen and I wanted a door between me and being brave for an audience. If this reaches you, I called the number that used to be in your pocket. I forget which rectangle you answer now. That seems like a stupid last problem, but here we are.
Don't pause me. I don't have the energy to be paused.
I love you. Not as a speech. As a fact that can sit on the table with the mail. You were a good husband in the ways that count on ordinary Tuesdays, and on the bad Tuesdays you tried, which is not nothing. I love Emma more than I know how to leave. If the leaving is soon — and the doctor has that look, you know the look, the one that gives ranges — then this is me putting my hand on her head from too far away. Tell her the triangle was in tune. Tell her the hoodie is starred on purpose. Tell her I was not sad to be her mother for a single day, even the days I was sharp. Especially those, maybe. Sharpness was me still being here.
There is a third thing. You can hear me sit up straighter. Lauren.