“I’ve been better.” She smiles and touches my arm. “But I do have a new student, and oh my, she is a spirited one. Curious, energetic, and spicy. She reminds me of you.”

I laugh. Kiko was my teacher when I went to school here and is the reason I wanted to be a teacher in the first place. “Then she’s in good hands.”

“You’ll get a chance to meet her when you come in on Tuesday. The kids love when you volunteer.”

I smile and nod, even though I have no idea what she’s talking about, but as it sounds like something I would enjoy and since I’ve always loved being around kids, I have no doubt that it’s a part of my schedule. “I can’t wait!”

Sefina appears by Kiko’s side, holding a bowl of small white papers. “It’s celebrity charades tonight,” she says and winks at me. “But only well-known people from before can be entered.”

I duck my head when Sefina says this to hide the burning in my cheeks. She means well, I know, but the public announcement affects me regardless. I write down what Kiko said about volunteering and then try to keep on top of recording the game and who did what and who was the best guesser. I have to pause when my hand burns from writing. One minute blends into the next, and I try to relax and enjoy the game and the laughter even as it fades. Sometime later, I return home to my quiet apartment, and before I go to bed, I sit down at my desk to review and make a plan for the next day’s activities, record everything on the calendar and my phone, and set out my clothes for tomorrow.

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

Monday, October 1

It’s an Alaskan morning when the sun creeps slowly above the mountains, staining the sky outside a watercolor of light blues and dusty pinks. A journal lies open beside me in bed, the one with the leather cover and the pages that are going soft from the years. It’s the first thing I reach for because it’s where I start every morning: reading about me. On the first page is a letter I wrote to myself, dated eight years ago. One I’ve read every morning since I first wrote it, and I know this because I instructed myself to make a hash mark on the pages of the journal for each time I read. The marks fill pages, grouped and totaled by month and then again by year for a running total of 2,920 times that I have read this same damn letter. I read the letter even though I don’t need to—years of sticking to the same routine have left an impression, if not the details. On some level I know that I’m different now.