The envelope was tucked between the pages of a cookbook, the edges yellowed with time.
Luke found it while looking for a pancake recipe—"Yours suck," he'd informed Daniel, which was fair, because they did.
"Daniel - DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 40!!!" was scrawled across the front in Lila's familiar all-caps scrawl.
Daniel stared at it. His 40th birthday wasn't for another three years.
"Open it," Luke said, hovering at his shoulder.
Daniel shook his head. "It says not to."
"Since when do you follow rules?"
A fair point.
With careful fingers, Daniel pried the envelope open. Inside was a card—the cheap, punny kind Lila loved. "You're not old, you're vintage!" it read, above a cartoon bottle of wine.
But it was the inside that made his breath catch.
The ink had smudged in places, blurred by time or humidity or maybe just the press of other pages against it. Lila's handwriting was still legible, but just barely:
"Hey, old man—
If you're reading this, it means I either A) forgot to give it to you (likely), or B) you're a snoop (also likely). Either way, happy birthday. Don't be weird about turning 40. You're still hot.
Love you always,
Lila"
At the bottom, a postscript: "P.S. If I'm dead, this counts as my haunting you. You're welcome."
Luke's sharp inhale was the only sound in the kitchen.
Daniel's fingers trembled as he traced the smudged words. The "always" was nearly gone, the ink faded to a ghost of itself.
Luke shifted awkwardly. "She really thought of everything, huh?"
Daniel couldn't speak. Couldn't do anything but clutch the card to his chest, as if he could press the fading words into his skin and keep them there forever.
Luke, mercifully, didn't push. Just turned back to the cookbook and said, "We're adding chocolate chips to these pancakes. She'd hate that."
And because it was true—because Lila had been a pancake purist—Daniel laughed wetly and reached for the bag of chocolate chips.