That night, Luna placed the letter in her mother's hands. Clarice read it, her face crumpling. "I forgot," she whispered. "I forgot I was enough."

Behind a stall of figs and cheese stood an old Italian man, Signor Emilio, a former "Secretary of Juliet"—one of the volunteers who answered the letters. He handed her a yellowed sheet.

"Dear Juliet," Clarice had written at 22. "I love a man who doesn't love me back. He says I’m too much. Too loud, too hopeful, too Brazilian. Should I become smaller?"

"If you're searching for Clarice's letter," it read, "stop. The letter was never published. But I know where it is. Meet me at the Municipal Market. I have the original."

The Ghost of a Letter

Luna cried. Her mother had not become smaller. She had married a quiet man who adored her loudness—Luna's father. So why was she fading now?