Dear Christopher,
I know it's only skin, but it means so much to me. It'll grow back, yes, but smoother this time. Shiny. Maybe we should quit smoking.
Or buy a car.

I lay on my stomach with one hand under my pelvis and the other up by my ear. The sheets got hot and sticky under me and the only thing in my mind was the face you made when I said, I'm close. I wish I could fall asleep but I'm hungry and my neck aches and these walls are paper thin. There's one scar on my right leg that I don't think you ever saw. I was angry and sitting dry in the bathtub, one night after Claire had come over for dinner, I was 16. After we ate she went into the upstairs bathroom and ran all three faucets but I could still hear her choking it out. This was when she lived in the apartment on Fulton by herself, right before South Africa, which I think is where she switched to vodka. Anyway then she went home and I put on my pajamas. Mom and Dad went to bed and I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and I couldn't help myself. It was about a quarter of an inch deep and probably needed to be stitched. Whales' blood is so thick with iron that it looks black. My knee jerked up and I hit my head on the tile by accident. Then I sat for a while. A few weeks later my mother said, What happened to these sheets? And I told her I'd gotten my period unexpectedly. I was 16. We are allowed to fuck up occasionally.

I forgive you.

I spoke to my mother on the phone this morning. She told me that she failed French in college. She sounded disappointed. I lied and said I'd won at beer pong. She laughed and said, This is a good thing. Then she said, The last thing he needs is to come home to someone who's just been pining away, sitting in bed all day missing him. I think she's impressed. I think she pined for my dad when he moved to Hong Kong. And then again when he moved to London, and then to Belgium, and then to Germany. And even more when he moved to San Francisco and she was at home with us, two sad and guilty daughters, each inducing endorphins in different but comparable ways. We thought we were keeping secrets. Our mother saw everything.

I forgive you.

What I am saying, Christopher, is that I think you should get a helmet. And that I'm so glad we didn't call Lighty last night. All that cocaine is just salt in the wound.

Okay, baby, I'm going to go buy lunch. Tell me when you get a phone number, or an address.

All my love
Eleanore

(in collaboration with wag scala)