To be honest, I’m eager to leave, especially after hearing Jenny’s story. I think of your teachers at school and wonder why I didn’t consider asking any of them to take you in. I know it’s a big ask, but they seem to care deeply for you. I rack my brain for other people we might know, but I live an isolated life, and the list is short. Actually, it’s nonexistent.

I am running out of time—that much I know—and I’ve wasted a precious amount of time with this pointless trip to Nysa. And me with anytime to three months. I find it hard to imagine that, at this rate, I will last three more months.

I hear Tom before I see him, his light footsteps coming across the hardwood floors, the carpet in the living room. It is such an empty house, and I feel a surge of sadness for him, living in this expansive place on his own. I remember the rug, the rug in your room that you destroyed, and I expect anger or something like it, so the serious look on his face doesn’t surprise me.

But the words that come out of his mouth do.

“She’s gone.”

Our Future Spelled Out

The four of us moved to the cabin the day we graduated from high school, and one thing that the years have obscured is exactly how my parents felt. I can’t remember talking with them about it, or arguing, or pleading. I can’t remember if they came out to see the place, or what they said when I told them Mary and I were married and she was pregnant. I guess some memories simply aren’t able to make the passage through time with us. They’re too heavy, forgotten, dragged to the bottom by their own weight.

A few things changed when we arrived at the cabin that second summer. Each couple took one of the bedrooms—that was different. Even though we were all of age by that point, we drove across the border and went to the same chapel, went through an identical ceremony for Tom and Shirley, the only difference being that I drove with Mary in the passenger seat while Tom and Shirley sat in the back.

Another thing that changed was our lifestyle. In one magical year we had somehow turned into adults. Shirley had taken a job as a clerk at a small supermarket about twenty minutes from the cabin. Tom worked on a construction site and spent Sundays filling out applications for colleges. Tom and I each had a car, but Tom’s hours were early, so I drove Shirley to the supermarket before going to a local insurance office on Main Street in Nysa and typing up paperwork for them. I thought I would hate it, but there was something therapeutic about the sound of the striking keys, the winding of the return, the satisfaction of an error-free page.

Mary stayed home and played mother to all of us.