Holding back my relief that I was only going to my room was the hardest con of the day.

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Two days alone. Two days without interaction was a lot once you were used to a strict schedule that included visiting almost forty voices a day. The worse part was trying to tamp down the unreasonable gratitude I felt. Maybe Mellin wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe she was fair and just.

No, I told myself. No, she is a monster, and this is a monstrous situation. I shouldn’t be grateful. Grateful meant I was broken.

At least they left the light on. And it did give me time to think, after I checked the mattress, just in case. The slit in the fabric was small, and inside, the notes remained unmolested. I thought about the risk I was taking for the inmates. Was it worth the possibility of discovery to carry hopeful messages out into a world without hope? And how would I even get them out the door? I was sure that on the day they let me out into the field, everything I wore and carried would be closely scrutinized from my naked ass up.

I decided sometime that first night that I was going to have to get rid of them and carry them out of here at the same time. I recalled something Mitch had said back in the infirmary about reading the Bible. About how it was ridiculous to think the book was the important thing and not the words themselves that should live inside of you. So, one by one, I slipped the notes out of the mattress, memorized them, and then flushed them. I dared only flush once an hour in case that was being monitored. It took at least that long to memorize some of them, and I was in no hurry. I had nothing but time in here.

The next morning, I finished the entire set. Some of them seemed like they were just for me, or least that’s how I took them, maybe because I needed them.

You’re not alone. None of us are.

A new day is coming. I can feel it.

I spent the rest of the day running laps around the room, whisper-singing each note back to myself. I made up a song to help me remember them—I couldn’t stand to lose even one word. A few of the napkins I hadn’t read before. I tried not to get distracted, but a few of them were vague enough that I played a game of Indian Geography. Could this person be a relative? Might one of them be someone I’d met? One in particular stuck in my brain like it was pinned to the inside of my skull. I had no problem remembering it. The fight was in not getting completely hung up on it to the detriment of the rest of the bundle.

I am still Marguerite Eliot. I will always be Marguerite Eliot. Tell my mother that I am alive. She is an Elder and needs help; she don’t remember too well anymore. Tell her baamaapii gigawaabamin.