On Thanksgiving morning, I took a thermos to the river again. Last year had been sharp and bright and surgical. This year was dull and warm and precise. I listed the things I was grateful for in a notebook not because anyone asked but because gratitude is a hard skill. I wrote soup and girls with coins in their hair and the exact right wrench and my table and learning the difference between a couch and a crash pad and the way the dog at the shelter presses his forehead into my palm like it’s a switch for hope.
I did not write family as a category. I wrote people I can trust and tucked in names.
December, the city bruised purple by five o’clock, brought one more thing I wasn’t expecting: a letter from Hailey. She found my office address. The envelope was heavy like she’d weighed her choices in it. I stood at my kitchen counter with a paring knife and opened it.
Kayla—
You don’t owe me your eyes on this. But if you’re reading, thank you.