Dana Vespoli Dear 99%

Dana’s hand went cold. She set the paper down, looked toward the back door. Locked. She was sure she’d locked it. But then again, she’d been forgetting things lately—the way her mother had started to forget, before the end.

I live in the walls, Dana Vespoli. Not as a ghost. Not as a rat. As a memory you buried wrong. Remember the summer you were twelve, and you told your sister she could have the last piece of peach cobbler? You lied. You ate it at midnight, standing over the sink, and you never told her. That’s me. That’s all the little truths you fed to the dark. dana vespoli dear

The fog had already started to seep through the keyhole. Dana’s hand went cold

You don’t know me. But I’ve been watching the way you leave your back door unlocked. The way you hum off-key when you water the geraniums. The way you say “dear” to the stray cat even though you pretend you haven’t named it. She was sure she’d locked it

Dana Vespoli dear, she whispered to herself, the way her grandmother used to begin every scolding. And then she got up, very slowly, and walked toward the bedroom, leaving the letter on the table beside the wilting geraniums and the unpaid bill.

Dana turned the envelope over, thumb tracing the wax seal—crimson, unmarked, as if it had been pressed by a ring she didn’t recognize. She lived alone now, in the small house by the salt marsh where the fog rolled in each evening like a held breath. The mail came at four. By 4:03, she had the letter open and the kitchen light on, even though the sun was still out.