September 6th, 1977

My everything,

My ride to California is due to leave in the coming days. I sense our departure will be sudden; the man’s business in Holbrook hasn’t quite gone to plan. What began as a raised thumb and a ride for me has turned into paid errands for him and they spring up without warning. I am writing this letter in haste from my table in a diner, so please excuse its bluntness.

I’ve had a recurring dream. You and I are standing on the Santa Monica pier. Mark is there too. You are looking at me and there is forgiveness in your eyes. Not because what I have done is excusable, but because you see I have become the man you always wanted and needed me to be because of it. You see in me that waywardness is sometimes a necessary evil in the search for sensibility and our swelling ocean calms. We stroll the boardwalk of Venice Beach and I have my arm draped around you like a scarf while Mark runs a few steps ahead. We are laughing and he is smiling, and in my reverie, we are a family again. I wake from this in another bed in another place but always without the two of you. It has gone on too long, and it has gone on by my own doing.

I want you to meet me in Los Angeles. I need you to meet me in Los Angeles. I can’t find my way home without you, and to return to you an unfinished man would surely spell the end. All it takes is a chance. I think everybody gets at least one, though not everybody realises it. A second from you would be from on high. Not something I deserve, but something I hope you have still left in your heart for me. I am petrified to hear the sound of your voice again, but I will call when I reach the coast. I will scrape together all I have and all I am owed and I will find a way to get you here and get us both back. We must mend what is broken, my love, before it’s too late. Before all of the pieces become unsalvageable and before we become the very ghosts haunting our own memories. I think my time is up; the man has started screaming into a payphone outside the diner and a small crowd is gathering. Another errand is impending.