Dism -

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“I think I understand,” she said.

“What?”

Then she picked up Leo’s notebook. She opened it to the first page. His handwriting was small and neat, just as she remembered. The entries were dated, year after year, all the way back to 1994. She read a few, then a few more. She laughed at some. She almost cried at others. And when she reached the last page—the final entry, dated three days before he died—she found this: “Can I ask you something

“You have to stop collecting.”

“No.”

After the service, a woman approached her. Late forties, red-eyed, wearing a pendant that caught the light. “You must be Mila,” she said. “Dad talked about you.” year after year