Now that Em and I were writing each other, I understood Em’s connection to Canada a little better. Em didn’t think of herself as coming from Canada, yet she was always imagining going back. She’d been born in Canada, and she had a Canadian father, but Em’s memories of Toronto were a nonlinear narrative; her early childhood hadn’t gone in a straight line, according to plan. She distinctly remembered various girls in the all-girls’ school where she’d worn a uniform, but she only dimly remembered herself as one of the uniformed girls. In Em’s mind, it was always Christmastime in Toronto, and all the Christmas trees in Canada were blue.

Em couldn’t remember how old she was when her parents were in the process of separating, or how long it took before they were divorced. Em soon moved to the United States with her mother, who was American. Em had a more reliable memory of some small towns in Massachusetts than she had of Toronto. She’d gone to a couple of private elementary schools, then to a boarding school in the western part of the state. During and after the divorce, Em had visited her father only once a year—over the Christmas holiday. It wasn’t only in her mind that it was always Christmastime in Toronto, but it was entirely in Em’s mind that all the Christmas trees were blue. The blueness of Christmas began for Em when her parents separated. It started with the self-hatred of Em’s mother and father, and their expressed hatred of each other. This was when Em began to think that not speaking might be her best option. In Em’s mind, this was why all the Christmas trees in Canada were blue. I knew the blue trees weren’t real, but I understood what they signified for Em; the blue Christmas trees were psychologically true.

When Em’s mother read The Coming Out Stories, she wrote to Em in care of the publishing house. Em had been careful not to let her parents know her home address. Em’s mom had always known how to be hurtful. “I hope you’re not still kidding yourself about going back to Canada. As long as your father lives there, you know you’ll never go back to him, but it’s just like you to hold on to things that aren’t true,” Em’s mother wrote her.