The Kitchen Corner of Ten Years

The tile floor is cool beneath my bare feet. The yellow rotary telephone sits on the counter, and the cabinet door has shifted, revealing a gap of dark space. I walk through the space, the smell of burnt cinnamon filling the air. There, tucked under the sink, is a small stack of letters. I pick up the topmost sheet. It is addressed to me, written in my own script. The ink is faded, and the paper has the crisp weight of dried autumn leaves.

A muffled voice calls from the hall, saying a name. I track the sound to the doorway. The voice says the name, and the sound breaks, the syllable dissipating into nothing. It does not echo. My stomach presses against my ribs, the certainty that I left something critical in that adjoining room. I turn toward the hallway, reaching out into the quiet space.