This time there were no papers asking us whether we wanted to leave her.
There was only a chair on each side of her bed.
Daniel sat in one.
I sat in the other.
And neither of us moved.
One evening, Sophie asked me to take a folded envelope from her drawer.
On the front she had written:
FOR MOM AND DAD — NOT YET.
I hated those last two words.
Sophie died nine days later.
She was sixteen.
Daniel held one of her hands.
I held the other.
For eleven years we had begged for a child, and when she finally came, sixteen years suddenly felt impossibly short.
We waited almost a month before opening her envelope.
Inside was one page written in Sophie’s uneven handwriting.
She had written:
“Please don’t spend the rest of your lives saying I didn’t live long enough. I know I didn’t get as many years as other people, but I got you. I got birthdays, school, friends, music, milkshakes, the ocean, bad jokes, and a home where I always knew I was loved.”
I had to stop reading because I couldn’t see through my tears.
Daniel continued.
At the bottom, Sophie had written one last sentence.
“And Dad, thank you for not signing that paper.”
