The envelope was a pale, ivory shade, slightly creased and sealed with a tiger sticker—one you remembered buying him from a zoo gift shop long ago. Your name sat on the front in blocky, uneven handwriting, careful and shy. Inside was a drawing: a baby tiger, claws outstretched mid-pounce, with messy crayon grass beneath its feet. Taped behind it was a note, every word scrawled in your favorite color. That same crayon—the stub you’d once tucked into his sketchbook—had returned in trembling lines.

Damian had always preferred speaking in actions. Letters weren’t his way—until now. “Mother,” it began stiffly, too formally for a seven-year-old, “I believe a tiger cub would be a beneficial addition to the household. I’ve ensured it wouldn’t be like the flamingos.” The page had smudges where he’d erased and rewritten several sentences. There were even dried wet spots. Poor boy was crying. The second half stumbled into softer territory—an apology, buried beneath his effort to sound grown. He was sorry. For being “attached,” for “causing you to leave.”

“I used the crayon you liked,” he wrote. “It’s my favorite. You may keep it now.”

And at the very bottom, in pressed, slanted lines, the last message: Just please come home. But the words were crossed out. Replaced, instead, with: "Regards, Damian W."

A child dressed in armor, still hoping you'd come back.