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The front of my body was very cold and the back was very hot Soht I opened my eyes and saw constellations whose names were their own business "Were you ever in love with my sister?" I asked
He looked at me oddly
"It’s just a joke Every man I’ve ever been with, it seems like, was really in love with Hallie"
"I can’t picture your sister She’s shorter than you, right?"
I ducked ht then I could have signed on for life
The day we left Grace, there had been four airmail letters in the PO box Lately Hallie’s letters so to the accua and Grace But I saved them and read only one per day It supported the pleasant, false notion that she was available to me all the time and would always be there tomorrow
The fourth day of our trip was Christ as we drove down from Jemez, before we arrived in Santa Rosalia, I laid out all four letters on the dash in order of postmark and spent one last hour withthe fourth one Hallie’s week had gone wildly up and down On Tuesday she was nigh unto overn on the pesticide problericultural che econo froua was run by the US Marines and Somoza, it was the world’s nuua (our government, she called it) planned to take responsibility for its poisons She also a after a stint of literacy work near the Atlantic coast I couldn’t read anything between the lines
On Wednesday, a child was rushed in froa clinic in critical condition because someone had stored paraquat in a Coke bottle
On Thursday she was grie raid on a hydroelectric plant, somewhere to the east, and were surprised by some armed farh town in the back of an open Jeep, slit-eyed with dishonor, on their way to trial in Managua Wouldn’t it be so, she mused, if that Jeep hit one of the contra road mines? But there was the driver to consider, and even if there hadn’t been, it wasn’t so she could wish for She said, "You can’t let your heart go bad like that, like sour milk There’s always the chance you’ll want to use it later"
I wondered at what point I’d given up on later and let ht I reread each of the three letters with fascination but also the sa I’d opened it It was all just things happening, and selfishly, I wanted Hallie Even if she didn’t speak to me directly, I wanted her to speak
I tore open the last envelope and was hit full in the face hat I wanted It was four pages long, in a cursive enlarged by rage When God wants to punish you, as Isak Dinesen declared, He answers your prayers
I aet another letter thatyou, by return s to do
You say you’re not a moral person What a copout So happened to ive you a bad ood, so you can’t do good things Jesus, Codi, how long are you going to keep li around on that crutch? It’s the other way around, it’s what you do that makes you who you are
I’ to explain, and I wish you were here so I could tell you this right now, I a to explain to you that I’ It’s not so You ask, what if we lose this war? Well, we could By invasion, or even in the next election People are very tired I don’t expect to see perfection before I die Lord, if I did I would have stuckthe stories of so isn’t some fine destination but just the road you’re on, and the fact that you kno to drive You keep your eyes open, you see this daot born into, and you ask yourself, "What life can I live that will letand not run off screah rock and choose cotton fields in Nicaragua These cotton fields chose me