When I got to Xavi’s, I undressed on his terrace: changing out of Laia’s sundress and into my own clothes that were still a little warm from their day in the sun. Inside the apartment, the light was on, but when I went in, Xavi wasn’t there. I set my bag of vegetables on the kitchen counter, then slid the heavy paper I’d bought behind the bookshelf so it wouldn’t get bent.
Sitting on the bed, I dumped the contents of my courier bag onto the floor. I lifted my mother’s letter to my nose, but it didn’t smell like her. I still wasn’t ready to open it. Someday I might be, or maybe I would wait until I could see her face to face and respond to whatever she’d written in real time. I didn’t know what I was more afraid of: what the letter might say or what it might not say. I tucked it into my s
