February 3, 2006:
"I will never let you down."
The note, in her sad, little girl's script, written with a black felt-tip marker held by a hand with picked and shredded and bleeding fingernails.
All things end. That was the moment, you now believe. It would have been better to acknowledge it then, as she did before long, and move forward with your life.
Still. Even now. Thinking of that moment so long past, in imagination your hand strokes her face, to offer comfort, and acknowledge pain.