I’ve been staring at this screen for like twenty minutes and my thumbs are actually shaking which is ridiculous because I’m a grown woman, I’ve run entire departments for crying out loud, but here I am. It’s nearly three in the morning and the crickets outside my window are so loud tonight, they get like that in August in this part of the state, just this constant buzzing that makes you feel like your brain is vibrating. I should be sleeping because I have a meeting with the regional board at nine—they’re talking about my retirement package, which is a whole other thing I can’t even think about right now because what am I supposed to do with all that time? But anyway, I have to say this out loud, or type it I guess, because it’s been thirty-two years and I think I’m losing my mind just a little bit. I live in this town where everyone knows what kind of bread you buy at the IGA, you know? Like, if I buy the sourdough instead of the whole wheat, Barb at the register asks if I'm making soup or if I'm having company over. It's that kind of place where privacy is just a suggestion. I moved back here after the big city didn't feel like home anymore, or maybe I was just running away from the noise, I don't know. My house is one of those old Victorians with the wrap-around porches that looks real pretty from the street but the plumbing is a nightmare and the hallway closet has this weird draft that smells like old wood and cedar. That closet is where it is. Behind the winter coats and the vacuum cleaner that doesn't even work right anymore because I sucked up a penny three years ago and never got around to fixing it. There’s a suitcase in the very back. A dusty, navy blue Samsonite that I bought for a trip to Chicago that I never actually ended up taking because that was the year everything went sideways. It happened in November. It wasn't even cold yet, just that damp, gray kind of day where the sky looks like a dirty sidewalk and you can’t tell if it’s raining or if the air is just heavy. I was doing so well at the firm back then, I was the youngest junior executive they’d ever had and I thought I had it all figured out, the suits and the power lunches and the whole deal. And then I didn't. It wasn't supposed to happen, the doctor said it was just one of those things, a "complication" which is such a stupid, empty word for when your whole world falls through a hole in the floor. I didn't tell anyone at work. I took three days off and told them I had a flu, a real bad one, and when I came back I just put on my suit and my heels and I did my job. I did it better than anyone because I had to keep my head above water. But I never forgot the date. November 14th. Every year it rolls around and it’s like I can’t breathe until I do the thing. So every year, I drive. I don't go to the IGA in town because Barb would see me and ask questions or look at what I'm buying with that tilted-head look she gives, so I drive forty miles over to the big department store in the city where nobody knows my name or my business. I go to the baby section. It’s always so bright in there, too bright, and they play that upbeat music that makes my teeth ache like I've eaten too much sugar. I pick out a blanket. It has to be soft—REALLY soft. This year it was a pale cream color with little embossed stars. Last year it was sage green. I take it to the self-checkout because I can’t look at a person while I’m buying it. I’m sixty-one years old. People look at me and think I’m buying a gift for a grandkid, which I don’t have, or a friend’s baby, but I feel like it’s written all over my face that I’m a liar. I’m a big, fake liar. When I get home, I wait until it’s dark. I don't know why I wait for the dark, it’s my house, I live alone, nobody is coming over at 8 PM on a Tuesday, but I still feel like the neighbors are watching through the gaps in the curtains. I go to that hallway closet and I pull out the navy suitcase. It’s heavy now. REALLY heavy. I unzip it and the smell hits me—it’s not a bad smell, just... cedar and dust and that "new fabric" scent that never really goes away when things are tucked away like that. I fold the new blanket up, I smooth it out with my hands until there isn't a single wrinkle, and I tuck it on top of the others. There are thirty-two blankets in that suitcase. Thirty-two. I think about what’s going to happen when I’m gone. That’s the retirement talk getting to me, I guess, making me think about legacies and what people leave behind besides a good 401k. When they finally come to clean out this house—probably my cousin’s kids who I barely see because we aren't close—they’re going to find that suitcase. They’re going to open it and see thirty-two brand new baby blankets with the tags still on them and they’re going to think I was crazy. They’ll say, "Oh, Aunt Sarah was always a bit eccentric, wasn't she?" and they'll probably just donate them to a thrift store or toss them in a bin. And the thought of that just KILLS me. But at the same time, I feel like I'm hoarding this thing. Is that a thing? Like I’m keeping all this sadness in a box under my winter coats instead of just letting it go like a normal person would have done decades ago. Sometimes I go into the closet just to touch them. I shouldn't admit that. It feels creepy when I say it out loud, like something out of a movie about a woman who’s lost her marbles or stayed in one place too long. I’ll sit on the floor—which is hard on my knees these days, I really need to see a doctor about that clicking sound they make—and I’ll just rest my hand on the pile. They’re so soft. They’re the softest things I own. My life is all spreadsheets and quarterly reports and making sure the brand identity is "consistent across all platforms" but that suitcase is the only thing that feels real. And it’s a secret. My whole life is a secret wrapped in a blazer and a nice professional haircut. I don’t know why I’m telling a bunch of strangers this. I guess I just need someone to know that they exist. That HE existed, or would have. I never even picked a name, I was too scared to even think that far ahead back then, but in my head he’s always just been "him." My sister-in-law asked me once, years ago, if I ever regretted not having kids so I could focus on my career and I just laughed and said I was "married to the job." I said it with a glass of wine in my hand and a smile on my face and I wanted to scream until my throat was raw. I’m so tired of pretending. I’m just so tired. The sun is going to come up soon and I’ll have to put on my face and go talk about pension plans and act like a person who hasn't spent thirty years filling a suitcase with things that will never be used. I just... I don't know. I don't know how to stop.