Dear Linda,

I think about you all the time. I’m trying to be ready for when you get here.Ready to say yes again,I guess.Ready to keep up with you. Ready to try for something I’ve never thought I could have before.

I know I can achieve a lot on my own and I will. But some things would be easier if I could breathe the same air as you for a while every day.

Are you well? Are you safe? Do you remember what I remember?

Love, Marissa, Day 23 without you

If she actually put them to paper she’d have dozens of such letters by now. If Linda knew how sentimental and corny she was— sleeping with a shirt under her pillow—she’d probably be turned off by it.

There was good news in her office, however, in the form of Ocky who met her at the door with a gleeful smile. “I did it—we’re going to offer group parties and discounts. No more stigma and shame about using a mate-finding service. Get your friends involved and all that. There’s no end to the number of women who don’t have time for bad dates. And where the women start enrolling the men follow.” Ocky did a little dance. “Want to go have a burger?”

“No—can’t do it today. I eat too much.”

“But you’re working out.”

“I’m gaining weight, not losing it.”

“When was the last time you ate a package of Oreos? You’ve totally changed your habits since we left college.”

“Too little, too late. I don’t need the Oreos anymore,” she added without thinking. “Hey—I came out to my mother.”

Ocky collapsed into the only chair that wasn’t layered with files. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Just told her. Told her that . . .” Oops, she’d nearly mentioned Linda but she’d not told Ocky about Linda. “I told her that someday I hoped to have a woman in my life. I think she already knew. She was angry because she couldn’t ignore it any longer.”

“That is so totally cool. Good for you. Feeling better now?”

“Not really. I care about her, I guess. I was hoping she’d prove she cared about me.” Why had she stopped eating the Oreos after college? She and Ocky had concocted their Finders Keepers scheme and started it all out of Ocky’s garage and with Marissa’s dead grandmother’s trust fund payouts. For the first four years they’d both had dead end jobs. Marissa’s had been doing basic systems maintenance at a women’s health clinic.

“You’re all she’s got. I hope she figures that out finally.”

Marissa shrugged. “She will or she won’t. I think she’d love to brag about me at the club and compare me to other people’s kids— live through me a little. But other than surviving a shipwreck, there’s little to brag on.”

“Only because she’s got whacked priorities.”

Marissa had to agree and she finally waved Ocky out of her office, eager to make some headway on several fronts.