Things I keep in your handwriting

A grocery list with a heart drawn next to the eggs. A note on the back of an envelope that says be back by seven, kiss the dog. A birthday card in which you wrote one sentence and then crossed it out and wrote another and then left them both because you did not have another card.

I do not look at them often. I know where they are. The knowing is enough most weeks. Once or twice a year I take them out and I read them in the order I received them, which is not the same as the order I keep them in. The order I keep them in is private.

Your handwriting did not change in the eight years I knew it. That is the thing that startles me, when I look. The same loop on the g. The same impatient comma. You wrote the way you talked, in a hurry, certain. I am reading these slowly on purpose, to disagree with the hurry, to keep you here for another minute.