The astronaut’s mother, before she died, sent her daughter away to college, up north, she said when people asked. She’s going to school up north.
She waved from the driveway as the astronaut drove away. She wrote letters filled with innocuous things, I hope your studies are going well, do you like your professors, have you met any nice boys. . .
Alicia Dorman folded the candy packet over three times, stuffed it back into the box upside down and pushed it toward Casey: “Put that away where I can’t see it. If I can’t see it, I won’t remember we have it. If I don’t remember it, I won’t want it.”