Already Sent Before I Decided
His chair gets claimed under my name in the family thread before I remember deciding to send it.
Mom's house sold last week and today was the last walkthrough, every room a battlefield of yellow sticky notes with our names on them, first claim wins, the system dad set up when this all started. I did the packing. Both closets, the attic, the whole kitchen, four Saturdays in a row while my brother came by twice and left early both times.
Tonight everyone's gone and I'm sitting in the driveway with the engine off, not ready to drive back to an apartment that isn't full of somebody else's forty years. My phone's still open to the family thread. Through the porch window I can see his car hasn't left either.
He wanted the blue armchair. Told the group chat weeks ago, half joking, but I remember it. I open the photo of it, type his name off the sticky note in my head, and put mine on instead.
I don't remember deciding to hit send. I just look down and the message is already there, delivered, the little check mark blue. My thumb did it before the rest of me agreed to.
I sit in the dark car and watch his taillights finally pull out, and I don't take it back.