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Okay, maybe I’m not doing great. I can’t get his face out of my head. The way he looked as he was leaving, suitcase in one hand, other hand on the doorknob, turning around like he forgot something. Turning around like he wanted to say goodbye to me. But that doesn’t—

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I’m trying to…focus on other things.

I took a branch from the national park back in Wyoming—I know you’re not supposed to do that, but it was on the ground, it’s not like I took it off a tree. So I feel like it’s okay.

But I was thinking I might whittle it into something. I haven’t whittled in fucking ages, but I used to be okay at it and it’s not like i’ve got any materials to build miniatures. 
What do you think, Birdie? What shape should I carve this little piece of wood into? A bird? Make a little keepsake that I can give you when we meet?

Yes, I said when. I’m deciding to hold out hope. I think I saw a ghost the other morning, so nothing is impossible for me anymore. Here I am, moving about the world, totally alone, and surviving. Thriving, one might say, despite any midnight breakdowns I may or may not have had.

They said it couldn’t be done—that leaving Pennsylvania would be the end of me. But it’s not. I’m sitting on the hood of my car on the side of the highway in Colorado, whittling a stick from Wyoming into a bird for an anonymous friend who only communicates in dots and dashes.

The impossible happens every day. And I’m not dead yet.

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