The Letter

As the sunlight filtered through the swaying branches framing the window in my office one afternoon, I was suddenly jolted from the pleasant normalcy of an ordinary workday when my cell phone rang. I spun my chair around to pick up the phone and my heart seemed to stop for a moment as I saw the name on the caller ID. It was a cousin I hadn’t heard from in quite a long while. Oh, God, I thought, this is it—this is the call.