Wanting to snatch the letter from my aunt. My letter! But I knew to be cautious.

It was possible, my mother had warned Aunt Irma who was her younger sister not to allow me to receive letters from Geraldine Pyne . . . (But then, Aunt Irma would not have shown me the letter, would she? I was too confused to think clearly.)

This letter was the first that had come for me in Port Oriskany. Weeks I’d been living here, in the beige-brick house on Erie Street that was so much tidier and quieter than my family home, and no one had written to me, and if there had been telephone calls between Aunt Irma and my mother, I did not know about them.

Furiously my mother hissed in my ear—They look down their noses at us. People like that. Don’t tell me.

Often in my new life I had to shake my head to clear it of my mother’s admonishing voice. It was a dread of mine, that others might hear these hissing words as one might hear a radio whose volume has been turned very low.

And often I was slow-witted, sleepy. My eyelids were heavy. I watched the mouths of others (adults) to try to determine the tone of what they were saying for I did not always comprehend what they were saying. By the time a question came to its end, I had forgotten the beginning.

Vaguely I shook my head yes.

Or, might’ve been no.

I had forgotten what my aunt had asked me, that was so urgent. My heart beat quickly in anticipation of danger, or of a sudden undeserved surprise.

Reluctantly Aunt Irma surrendered the letter to me. It was clear that she did not trust me—of course, no one in the family could trust me. But Aunt Irma seemed to like me, and to wish (it seemed) that I might like her.

Childless, my mother’s younger sister was. Whispered in the family. Like a curse.

“Thank you, Aunt Irma.”

It was an effort to speak clearly. If you are sleepy your words have an inclination to go soft, slur. Often bizarre dream-figures crowded near to observe me with unnatural interest like piranha fish approaching their prey with caution. So intensely did these creatures listen to what I managed to say, trying to determine the degree of my alertness, and my ability to defend myself against their attack, that I often lost the thread of what I had myself said.

She expects you to open the letter in front of her. She wants to know what is in it.