I See You -2019- -

A week later, the second card came. A photo of an empty carousel. On the back: Remember the red balloon? Leo remembered. Mia had lost a red balloon at the county fair last spring. She’d cried for an hour. He’d bought her two more. The date was the same:

“I know.” She reached into the shimmer and pulled—not a hand, but a thread. A red thread, like the one that had tied the balloon. “She’s happy here. In the long now. She plays in all the 2019s at once. The one where the fair was sunny. The one where you read her an extra story. The one where she didn’t fall off her bike. But she misses you. And I miss… not being alone.” i see you -2019-

He was standing in the doorway of Mia’s room, holding a worn stuffed rabbit, when the air in the corner shimmered. Not like heat. Like a memory of light. And then he saw her—not Mia, but the lady. She was young and old at once, dressed in clothes from no decade he knew. Her eyes were the color of old photographs. A week later, the second card came

Leo sat on the edge of Mia’s bed and wept. But when he finished, he felt something he hadn’t felt in months: a future. He walked to the window. The snow was covering the street, white and new. Somewhere, in the cracks between 2019 and everything that would come after, a little girl was laughing. And a lonely year was watching him through the glass of time, hoping he would be okay. Leo remembered