To the Friend I Lost Over Nothing

Dear M,

It has been eleven years, and I no longer remember what the argument was about. I remember the restaurant. I remember your coat — the green one, with the button you kept meaning to sew. I remember deciding, somewhere between the bill and the sidewalk, to be right instead of kind.

Nobody tells you that most friendships do not end. They simply stop being tended, like gardens the summer someone moves away. There was no final scene between us. There was only a phone that got heavier every month, until lifting it became impossible in the specific way that easy things become impossible.

I want you to know I kept the recipe you wrote on the back of a parking ticket. I make it every winter. I have never once gotten it right, and I have come to suspect the missing ingredient was the part where you stood in my kitchen saying no, no, less flour, while the windows steamed.

This letter, like the others in this book, will not be sent. Sending was never the point. The point is that some accounts can only be settled out loud, even if the only witness is the page.

Wherever you are: the button. Sew the button. Some things should not be left hanging by a thread on purpose.

Yours, still,
A.