and says Coming? She puts a hand on my back. Burgers, she says.
When we go downstairs little Margo is looking at me worriedly with her two fingers in her mouth. A habit her family tells her she is too old for.
After dinner we go into the living room, where the Harpers have set up a tree, and we all watch a movie that Margo and Kayla have chosen, an animated version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that I too watched when I was a kid. The girls laugh and laugh and laugh. Lindsay laughs at them. I laugh at Lindsay. Their tree has little lights on it, every color. It has ornaments and some of the ornaments are silver-framed pictures of each of the Harpers. The fact that Christmas is in two weeks has not even crossed my mind until now. I should get Lindsay something beautiful. I should get her something she will look at and hold in her hands and put on her body someplace, on her neck, on her wrist. In her long hair.
Before Margo goes to bed she hugs me.
The Harpers go next and then Lindsay and I look at each other, and then we go down to the basement.
I think of a time not that long ago, oh just a couple of months ago, when I would pick Lindsay up from this house and drive her places, when my mother was at home. When she was alive, when she was a wreck but alive. When I had the option of going home to see her. When I didn’t—when I never went home to see her.
Stop, says Lindsay. Stop thinking what you’re thinking.
We lie down so she’s at a right angle to me on the curved sectional couch. Our heads are touching. I kissed her down here.
We’re silent for a while. I wait for Lindsay to talk. She is like this: quiet, quiet, until she builds up the courage to say what it is she has to say.
Are you going to call him? she says, finally.
No, I say.
—Why not?
—I’m going to write to him.
—Why?
It’s what my mother would have done, I say.
I dig in my back pocket for my wallet and take out her goodbye note to me. I hand it to Lindsay. It is the most trust I’ve ever put in anyone.
When she is done reading it she hands it back to me without saying anything.
She was a shitty writer, I say, and I laugh. It’s not funny though. I wish I hadn’t said it.
No she wasn’t, says Lindsay, firmly. And Lindsay is the best writer I know.
I take something else out of my wallet next. It’s the piece of paper with the phone number and address of this man Arthur Opp.
I hand this to her next, over my head.
Brooklyn, says Lindsay.
I’m gonna mail it to him, I say.
The whole note? says Lindsay.
The whole note, I say.
You don’t want to keep it? says Lindsay.
No, I say.
In fact I want to get rid of it very badly. As soon as I can. The week after she died, I read it all the time because I missed her. But after a while I got sick of it, sick of regretting, sick of remembering it all. Finding her. Calling the goddamn ambulance. Sitting in the goddamn hospital. I want to drop it in the mailbox and be done with it. It seems easier to me than calling him and explaining the whole situation. It seems right.
•
Lindsay gets up suddenly and walks to the supply closet. She disappears inside it and comes out with an envelope and paper.
Here, she says, handing both to me.
She helps me write the note to go along with it. I make her write the address on the envelope because her handwriting is nicer than mine and I want to make very certain it won’t be lost in the mail. She looks at me when it is time to write the return address and I tell her I guess she should use her own. It’s more likely to find me here now.
I hold the sealed envelope in my hands and look at it. I look at her.
We can mail it now, says Lindsay. If you want.
Very quietly we tiptoe out of the dim house. The only light in the entryway comes from the tree. Outside it is cold and still and I can see every star. Lindsay lets me drive her car, and we both try not to slam the doors. At the Pells Landing