I’m scared. I want to get up, stuff everything back in my bag and collapse in front of the television with Méo. After all, no one will blame me for not writing.

Then a voice inside me says if I don’t write it, I will spend the rest of my life thinking about this letter that I never finished, never mailed.

I don’t want to write pages and pages. Just two or three lines. Maybe just a paragraph to tell her that I have never forgotten her.

But what if there is someone else in her life? What if she’s already married? I brush away this thought.

I take the plunge. I write every night. I erase, start over. I go through pages and pages of my notebook. Aunt Mona and Uncle Méo are surprised. They’ve never seen me work so hard. I tell them I have an important composition to write for Monsieur Thibeault. Every night before I go to bed, I gather up all my rough pages and carefully put them in my school bag.

It’s as if I’ve opened the lid of a chest that has been buried for a long time. And now that the chest is open, I can’t close it.

Dear Pinamen,

I don’t know where you are. I imagine that you’re back with your family. I’m not even sure that you’ll get this letter, but my heart told me to write you and I decided to do what it said.

Do you remember those few hours we spent together at the train station? I’ll never forget them. That day I saw in your eyes and in your voice that you felt good being with me. Then you got into the girls’ car and I went with the boys. I always hoped that you weren’t living through the same agony I was. This is the first time I’ve had the courage to talk about it. I want to be completely truthful with you. At the residential school, I was humiliated, beaten, pawed by filthy hands until I was sorry I had ever been born, until I was ashamed to be an Indian, ashamed of my ancestors, my language.

But always, in those terrible moments, I thought about you. I remembered your smile, and it made me feel strong. I resisted for the two of us. I dreamed of the day when I would see you again.

Sometimes I still feel so bad that I cry when I’m alone. It’s like I’m being taken over by a huge, sudden pain. I can’t explain it, but it makes me feel as if I’m alone and naked in a terrible snowstorm.

I was full of hope when I came to live in town. I thought I could bury the horrible memories that were haunting me on the reserve. I thought I would be able to sleep without nightmares, but I was wrong. The memories stick to my skin. Here I’m alone and useless. I’m a misfit, a good for nothing, and I feel as if there’s no place on this mother earth where an Indian like me can fit in.