Christmas here is like an Olympic event. I’ve never seen so much glitter and food. My grandparents gave me so many gifts it was embarrassing. But afterward, when I was in my own room alone, staring out the window at neighbors we stay away from, looking at houses strung in twinkling lights, I thought of real winter. Of you. Of us.

I looked at the picture of your grandparents and reread your grandmother’s newspaper article.

I wonder what it’s like for our baby. Does she feel how uncertain I am? Does the song of my broken heart play for her? I want her to be happy. I want her to be the child of our love, of who we were.

I think I felt the baby move today …

I’m thinking of her as Lily. After your grandma.

A girl needs to be strong in this world.

*   *   *

Dear Matthew,

I can’t believe it’s 1979. I called the rehab facility again today and heard the usual. No change.

Unfortunately, my mother overheard my call. She blew her stack and said I was being stupid. Apparently the police can trace the call if they wanted to. So I can’t call anymore. I can’t put us all at risk, but how can I stop? It’s all I have left of you. I know you’re not going to get better, but every time I call, I think, maybe this time. That hope is all I have, useless or not.

But that’s bad news and that’s easy. You want good news. It’s a new year.

I am going to the University of Washington. My grandmother pulled some strings and got Susan Grant registered with no evidence of graduation from high school. Life sure is different in the Outside. How much money you have matters.

College isn’t what I expected. Some of the girls wear these fuzzy Shetland sweaters and plaid skirts and knee socks. I guess they’re sorority girls. They giggle and clump together like sheep and the boys who follow them around are so loud a bear could hear them coming from a mile away.

In class, I pretend you’re beside me. Once I believed it so much I almost wrote a note to pass you under my desk.

I miss you. Every day and even more at night. So does Lily. She’s started to kick me awake sometimes. When she does get all squirrelly, I read her Robert Service poems and tell her about you.

That quiets her right down.

*   *   *

Dear Matthew,

Spring here is nothing like breakup. No earth falling away, no house-sized blocks of ice snapping free, no lost things seeping up from the mud.

It’s just color everywhere. I’ve never seen so many flowering trees; pink blossoms float through the campus.

My grandfather says the investigation is still open, but no one is looking for us anymore. They assume we are dead.