She sorted the correspondence into three piles. Bills, personal, everything else. Tuesdays were for clearing.
The card didn't fit. Not a bill — no amount, no return envelope. Not personal — the hand was no one's she knew. Cream stock, good weight. One line in unfamiliar type:
You will know when you know.
She put it on the table, apart from the three piles.
The piles cleared on Tuesday. The card stayed. She hadn't decided to keep it. She hadn't decided not to. It sat between the salt and the fruit bowl, close enough to the edge that a firm gesture would clear it, centered enough that none did.
Her daughter visited and said nothing about it. Her neighbor borrowed sugar and set the cup beside it. The letter carrier brought only ordinary mail.
After a month she noticed the table had reorganized itself the way a stream reorganizes around a stone. The salt had migrated. The fruit bowl sat slightly east. She still sorted on Tuesdays, still cleared. But the system now included something it couldn't sort.
She picked it up once, turned it over. Nothing on the back. Set it down in a place not quite where it had been. Close enough to count as return.