Birthday card badge

Theo found the birthday card on a Tuesday, tucked inside a book about old city maps he picked up at the library for a project that didn’t exist yet. The card was pale blue, the kind that pretends to be warm in a winter window. It bore a small, neat handwriting in black ink: “For Theo, on the day you turn 42.” He blinked at it as if a familiar door had clicked shut somewhere inside him and then opened again, slowly.