Eventually I gave up making cards. There was such childish hope in these cards, I began to feel pitiful even to myself like a dog whose tail is thump-thump-thumping long after everyone has abandoned him.

Instead I sent postcards. Chautauqua Mountains in autumn, Lake Ontario in winter, Niagara Falls shrouded in mist like ectoplasm. Staring down the steep nightmare sides of the Erie Canal at Port Oriskany where I was sent to live with my mother’s youngest sister Irma and her husband Oscar who had no children of their own.

Why did I continue for years, more years than I would wish to admit, to send cards that were never answered?—no one would ask this question who’d been disowned.

Because you never give up. You never stop hoping.

In my case hoping that Daddy would notice one of my cards sent to someone else in the family, to Katie for instance, and take time to read it as (I had to assume) he wouldn’t take time to read one of the cards addressed to him but would rip up the card at once; and, having read it, been moved, or impressed . . .

Never stop hoping because if you do, what remains?

Imagining the first words they will say to you—We are so sorry! We did not mean it.

Or—We did not understand.

. . . all a misunderstanding.

Careful schoolgirl handwriting on the cards. Careful not to say anything that might possibly offend. Each message very brief. Naive, innocent. Unaccusing. Yes, each card was an appeal but (I hoped) not an obvious shameful appeal. Each card was matter-of-fact, casting no shadow. The hope was that, asking for no sympathy, no pity, both sympathy and pity might be extended to me, who asked for so little. (Vain) hope of making my parents feel sorry for me and regret having sent me into exile; to make them consider (I wanted to think) rescinding my exile and inviting me back to the house on Black Rock Street where (I wanted to think) there was still a room for me, the second-floor room I’d shared with my sister Katie from which, in time, Katie herself would move and leave vacant . . .

How is the weather there in South Niagara? Here it is all snow—6 feet outside my window.

Or, Here it is terribly hot. Not even July & many mosquitoes!

Rarely, I might venture a timid fact. Starting 10th grade. Have to take the bus, it’s too far to walk. (Two miles.)

Aunt Irma was in the hospital for four days (gallbladder). But she is doing well now & says hello.

(Did my aunt ask to say hello? Certainly not. I would never have told her that I was writing to my parents.)

Eventually I would write on the back of a postcard of the Horseshoe Falls in jubilant sunshine Graduating on June 15, will be giving valedictorian address at Port Oriskany High & have scholarship for St. Lawrence U. in fall.