Chapter 9: Margin Notes

I read it on the Marguerite, sitting on the bunk with Myra's phone in both hands.

It was a photo of a single sheet of paper, lined and creased, with my handwriting in blue ballpoint.

The date at the top was March 21.

I didn't remember writing it.

That is a strange thing to say about your own letter.

I had written forty-one of them, mostly at night, sitting on an ammo crate with a headlamp, and they ran together in my head.

I read the first line.

"Brynn, it's raining sideways here and Boone is singing again. I keep thinking about the cottage and the porch swing."

I read the rest.

I'd told her I had saved enough for the down payment on a boat.

I'd told her I wanted three kids and a dog the size of a calf.

I'd told her I walked through the cottage in my head every night.

I went room by room, to make sure it was all still there.

It was a good letter.

It was a better letter than I'd known I could write.

And at the bottom of it, in a different pen, in loopy purple ink, someone had written in the margin.

"He wants three kids. G says I can have my own life."

Myra sat down beside me.

She didn't touch me.

"Is that her handwriting?" she asked.

"That's Brynn's."

"I thought it might be."

"She makes her capital G like a swan," I said.

My voice sounded far away.

"Scroll down," Myra said quietly. "There's a second one, lower on the page."

I scrolled.

Under the first note, squeezed against the bottom edge, there was one more line.

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