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"I don’t want to open any of them"

"Can I open this one, then?"

He slowly nodded I slid a fingernail under the tongue of the envelope and tore it open It was a garish, generic card for a young boy with pictures of trains and trucks in bright pri, even for a six-year-old When I opened the card, a bunch of dollar bills fell out

There was a short note inside, which I read aloud:

For Lia you a happy sixth birthday I promise to take you out for ice cream very soon

Love, Mom

I turned to Williaed "I don’t reain "You okay?"

He pulled away slightly "Why wouldn’t I be okay? That card said absolutely nothing"

"You want ain I set aside the six one-dollar bills--one for each year of his life--on his worktable and picked up the next envelope The next few years were ift that was equal to his age and a simple, quick birthday ith a prorew a little ly disappointed Around his fifteenth birthday, he recalled that she attended some milestones, like his first amateur art show, but overall, her visits were infrequent As he got older, she promised to take him out to dinner, and he h

As he stared at the last two cards in the pile, it was difficult to gauge his h, he snatched up the second to last card, opened it with one quick, forceful tear and unfolded it without even looking at the artwork or fore on the outside A crisp twenty-dollar bill that had never been used slid out of the card I added it to the orderly pile of cash on the table

In a flat voice, he read:

Dear Liam,

I know it’s probably too late to explain I don’t even know if I can You are a rown man that I don’t even know… But I hope you’ll understand so breath as if someone had punched him in the stomach "She didn’t know she was sick yet I think she found out the following year"

"What did she die of?"

"Kidney failure"

I picked up the last one and handed it to hih Maybe this one has what you’re looking for?"

He glanced at me and then down to the card "I doubt it"

"Well, let me just say this She was not a perfect person She had flaws, like we all do And you can’t ive her"

His forehead crumpled "Why would I do that?"

"Because it’llon to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die"

He sed and tore open the last envelope without even responding Then he opened the card, extracted theto read that one?"