The money in the bag is hers. The bag is hers if she wants it. The rabbit is definitely hers—tell her I’m sorry about Mr. Hoppity. I found him under the seat of the Number 13 the next week when I rode it back down to the station to see if I could stand to look at the place. The driver had put him in the lost and found box. I couldn’t give him back without telling her where we’d been, so I put him in the bag. It’s the only lie I’m truly sorry for. She cried so hard.
The chip is Andre’s. Give it back to him when he’s earned it again. He will. I believe that. I don’t know why. I believed it about you, too, sitting in that bus station, and I wasn’t wrong, was I? Twenty-four years I wasn’t wrong.
I’m tired now. Odessa is standing in the doorway making a face. My hand doesn’t want to hold the pen anymore. So let me just say the last thing.
You asked me once, in 2010 I think, on the porch, out of nowhere, did I ever think about leaving. Back in the bad years. And I laughed and said, Leon, don’t be foolish, where would I have gone? And you looked so relieved. I have thought about that night for twelve years. I am sorry I laughed. The true answer was Durham. The true answer was the 11:40. The true answer was, every year, baby, every single year I thought about it, and every single year I stayed, and that is not a smaller thing than never thinking about it. That is a bigger thing. That is the biggest thing I know how to give.
Thank you for giving me twenty-four years of reasons.
Yours, every March,
Loretta