It’s getting late, Liz. Your father won’t go to bed. I told him I’d wait up, he didn’t need to, but he says he’s not sleepy. He found an eyeglass repair kit, and now he’s repairing all the eyeglasses and sunglasses he can find in the house. It looks like we’ll be waiting this out together. He’s got the TV on again in the living room, but it’s just news about the war, that interminable, mad war.

I have to imagine the best for you, Liz. You’re not lugging a suitcase from a bus station to a tattoo parlor. You’re not lying unconscious in your black clothes on an empty beach somewhere. You’re out having fun with friends, laughing and talking in an all-night diner. Or maybe you’re already safe and warm in bed—a friend’s bed, or even a lover’s. Or maybe you miss your own bed, and even now you’re turning the car toward home, coming back to us.

I could stop this letter here—god knows it’s long enough. But I’m afraid if I stop now it’ll make the story of my adolescence sound like a tragedy, and I don’t want to leave you with that impression. There are happier things to tell if I can write a little longer.

Could all our lives be that simple, I wonder? They’re only tragedy or comedy depending on where we end them? Here’s the rest, Elizabeth, the happy ending.