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For my mother, Joan Link Coles; her brothers, Peter and Andy Link; and Joan’s and Peter’s other children, Jeff Coles, Peter Coles, Bennett Link, and Hillary Link (in memory). Love and thanks to all of you.
Are they quite beyond you,
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Mandy had forbidden her to go out with Walter more than two nights a week. Had she expected Miriam to resist, to make of this obstacle a stronger bond between herself and her lover? Are you getting tired of the boy? Be careful what and how you say and do things.
What did Miriam long for? Her lover. Her mother. Sometimes she confused them. Every night they didn’t see each other, Walter called to tell her what time to go to bed. He believes he’s been appointed regent in your absence. She wanted privacy of mind and to be understood. She wanted love and freedom. I know how this is, though I came of age in a different time, with different risks, different protections, buying and carrying condoms long before I ever planned to use them, in the years immediately following Roe v. Wade. Perhaps my letters are, as you say, shorter and dumber. How could she say what she felt or wanted to the tiny woman with the stinging slap? She didn’t know herself. She looked at Walter awash in sweet longing. She never wanted to see him again. In her journal, she asked for a big handsome man with a rich car to take me riding in my cute new clothes, and he would take me places! A means to an end. O, I know it’s wicked and ungrateful. Love. Liberty. For either, she would have to give up something she hadn’t tasted. She dreamed she could go back, that she and Mandy could be close as lovers again, and she wouldn’t have to choose. Then my Mommy and I will go bummin’ together and have a gorgeous time afterwards in a nice little house by the sea.
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