We have been here a week, both of us exhausted from the move and the unpacking, still trying to adjust to the heat and the different light. We both needed a break, and so today we went to find the house where Frank had lived as a boy. He insisted I take that damn oxygen tank with us, but I won the battle, at least for today. I just wanted to roll down the window and breathe on my own, and I did fine. Down to only one cigarette a day, sometimes two. Frank said things looked so different to him, and he circled the block several times before stopping in front of the house; it clearly has not been loved, with paint peeling and some shingles missing; an old Honda Civic (like we’d once had in our drive), bikes in a messy garage (we’d had that, too), and a circle worn into the dirt like a bike path. I waited in the car while he went to the door.

The young woman who answered said it wasn’t a good day, so then we drove and parked along Highway 211 and stood at the edge of the railroad tracks. He said he wanted to walk down to the site, but he didn’t do it that day. It was hot, and the sun so bright, broken bottles shattered and sparkling along the roadside. He told me how he used to put pennies on the rails, something I had heard him tell many times; one of the flattened pieces of copper was on his dresser, in the little jar where he put pins and paper clips. I can only imagine he was thinking of his father.

It’s odd, isn’t it, what we never outgrow. I think that those who forget being children have likely lost their souls; it’s just that simple. Please don’t forget. I hope these notes to you will help.

May 3, 1985
Newton

My father would have been 86 today, and I wish I could call him. TW3-3642. He almost always answered on the third ring and then called my name—“Lil!”—as if a complete surprise and delight to hear from me. There’s so much I probably haven’t told you about him.