Today you are to die. Please meet me at the corner of Main and Highland at 4 PM. Come alone.

This correspondence is expressly meant for the addressee. If you have received it in error, please call 1-800-REAPER; otherwise, you forfeit your right to be excused from said intentions. And we don't care.

"Darling, you love comforts me like bright sunshine after a--" The scrap of paper said. It was my turn to vacuum the floors on Saturdays and right at the far end of our study table, just before it got sucked by the machine, I stooped and picked up the torn snippet. The scrawly hand wasn't mine and, in that moment, it was as if my life had been sucked by the vacuum cleaner. Who was writing Shakespearean love notes, albeit flawed, to my wife?

When Jen got home, I skipped the pleasantries and all but shoved the scrap of paper in her face.

"Oh, there it is!" She looked bewildered. "Where did you find it, love?"

"Don't love me!"

"I can explain--"

"You'd better get started then!" I stood akimbo, us barely inside the front door.

"It's not what you think."

"Then, tell me!" I demanded again.

"You know how..." She paused to think, "I decided to take up hiking again?"

"Yes, every Saturday. Five p.m."

"You remember, huh? Anyway, I met this guy--"

"What guy?" I was breathing down her face by now.

She backed up against the front door and her shoulders sank. "Well, he's part of a drama group--"

"I don't want to know what he does, ok?"

"No, I mean he asked me to join their troupe, and I did!"

"What has that got to do with this scrap, and why didn't you tell me?"

"I was about to..."

"But isn't Venus and Adonis a love poem, and not a play?"

"Yes, we're adapting several works into a collage drama, dear jealous Iago!"

Then, she punched me in the ribs and hugged me tight.

"I want to worship your body on my knees."

I was fifteen and confused. Then almost immediately I got a follow-up text.

"Oops! Delete that last text, Jake! I was texting you and dad at the same time. Sorry about that, love. What I was going to say is I'll pick you up from Mattie's tomorrow morning at nine. Have fun!"

I guess it was nice to know that they still liked each other after 20 years of marriage...in a 'things I really never wanted to know' sort of way.

“Here,” Troy offered his cardigan from the back of his office chair.

“Thanks. It's always so cold in here.” I took it, grateful.

On my lunch, as I crossed the parking lot, I stuck my hands in my pockets. It's a self-conscious habit I have when I walk. A paper crinkled. Without thinking, I pulled it out and saw it was a yellow post-it, filled front and back with two different scrawls.

The first scrawl, in green ink:

Will you wear the black pumps? The Italian leather ones? I want you to wear them barefoot so they will really smell by the end of the night. I can't wait.

I smiled despite being kind of grossed out. A foot fetish? Eww. Then I felt bad. This was not meant for me; it's none of my business. But I am a nosy jerk and I wanted to know more so I flipped it over.

The second scrawl, in blue ink:

You are such a perv! You do know the penalty for me wearing the shoes you bought for me, right? I don't know if your balls are up to the torment I have planned. But then again, I know how you like me to hurt them. Be warned. See you tonight for your punishment.

Whoa. Okay. More fetish. Troy obviously has a work hookup. Good for him, I guess. I sheepishly put the note back into the sweater pocket.

I returned back to the office I shared with Troy. There was a stack of files waiting for me with a post-it on top. Written in that same green scrawl: Please do these first. Thx.

I immediately did a snort-laugh. The note was from our boss. Our uptight, married boss.

Oops! I didn't mean to do it.

I opened it up and I blew it.

All of your plans, I hope I didn't screw it.

Because of me they didn't get to it.

Now you have to redo it.

I really didn't mean to do it.

The note was nothing, almost. A plastic bag, half-swallowed by the sand, pinned beneath a tangle of mesquite roots. We would have missed it. Should have missed it. But my brother tripped—stupid luck, blind fate—his foot snagging the edge, yanking it loose.

Papá crouched, fished it out, shook off the dirt. Peeled the damp paper from inside. We watched his fingers, his eyes. His mouth formed the words.

Marisol—wait at the second fence. Look for the man in the red cap. Don’t trust anyone else.

Mami’s breath hitched. My brother wiped his hands on his jeans.

None of us were Marisol.

The desert stretched out around us, empty in that way deserts are never really empty. A hundred places for someone to be watching. A thousand ghosts caught between the sun-bleached bones of the land.

Papá folded the note like it meant something. Like it was ours now.

“We keep moving,” he said.

But I kept looking for a red cap.

He balled the letter up tightly and squeezed it, letting the angry pained tears run down his cheeks. All his life, his sister had never told him why she was such an angry person. Now, he knew after reading the Dear John letter why his sister left when he was a baby. He tossed the paper to his side and stood, letting the realization hit him like a tidal wave. From afar, the key clicked and the door opened. His dad's voice reverbed down the hallway but he heard nothing. Just the click of his dad's Glock and his angry footsteps.