The realization was uncomfortable, and I kept trying to ignore it.
Five evenings after her message, I was sitting in my living room when a key turned in the front door.
Skyla entered, looking utterly exhausted.
Her hair was tied back carelessly, her jacket wrinkled, and a small wooden box rested beneath her arm.
“Where have you been?” I demanded.
She placed the box on the coffee table.
“Please don’t start.”
“You disappeared for five days!”
“I know.”
“I called you!”
“I asked you not to.”
“Do you have any idea what I thought?”
She met my eyes.
“I thought you might be frightened.”
I nearly laughed.
I’d spent five days silently accusing her of abandoning me.
Skyla opened the wooden box.
I recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to her grandmother.
Its lid was scratched, and someone had glued a damaged corner back together.
Inside, Skyla preserved her grandmother’s handwritten recipes.
She’d once described it as the one possession she’d never willingly surrender.
