May 20

Dear Tara*Starr,

Okay, you asked for it! You said you wanted to know what’s happening, and suddenly a lot is happening again.

Although I would like to be all perky and tell you about the good stuff (which is also exciting) first, I can’t deny that the good stuff is not really the most dramatic or important stuff. So I’ll save the cheerful things for later and start off by telling you about … my father.

Can you believe it? He finally called. It was so weird. He called on the very day — the very day — that I had stopped automatically wondering every time the phone rang if the caller might be Dad. So when the phone rang at about 8:00 tonight (Sunday) I was completely unprepared to hear my father’s voice. In fact, I was expecting to hear Susie’s, because I had just called her and she was on the other line and had said she would call me right back.

Of course, I recognized Dad’s voice right away. He said, “Elizabeth? Hi, it’s me, Dad.” And I just said, “I know.” I’m sure he was waiting for a big gushy conversation, but the second I heard his voice I felt like my brain had turned to steel. So instead of saying, “Where are you? I’ve missed you! When are you coming home? Are you okay?” I just said stiffly, “Hold on, I’ll get my mother.” (I’m mad at him, Tara. Really mad at him. It may not seem that way, but I am. How could I not be mad at him?)

I set the phone down on the kitchen table and ran to get Mom. Since she and Emma were both tired, they were plunked down in the living room, watching The Little Mermaid together. “Mom,” I whispered loudly, “come here.” Emma didn’t take her eyes off the screen (or her thumb out of her mouth) when Mom left the room.

When we were in the kitchen I said, “Mom, Dad is on the phone.” And then, Tara, I did something — well, two things — I know you would be proud of. First I eavesdropped on Mom’s end of the conversation from outside the kitchen door, and then I actually picked up the extension in the hallway and listened to the rest of the conversation.

You know that saying about eavesdroppers never hearing anything good? Well, I guess it’s true. My father is going to leave us. He wants to get a separation from Mom. I’m not sure where he’s been all this time (I missed that part of the conversation, and I haven’t pressed Mom for details because she’s pretty upset), but he’s coming by on Saturday to pick up his stuff. At least he wants to see us before he goes. Where is he going? He didn’t really say, but I got the feeling he was leaving town. When I see him on Saturday I am going to make him tell us where he’s going. Give us an address and a phone number. I have a LOT of questions for him too. I’m going to list them on a sheet of paper, sit across from him in the living room, ask every single one, and make him answer every single one before he leaves.

So that’s the news about my father.

Other news is that Silhouette is coming along really well. We put up signs about it all over school, and kids have already started sending us poems. I hadn’t expected so many, but I guess Mrs. Jackson had. She told us the hardest part of putting together the journal will be deciding which poems are not going to be in it. I’m not going to think about that right now. There’s an awful lot of other stuff to do anyway. For starters, we need to find a couple of people to do some artwork for the journal. Plus, I’m writing a few poems myself.

School is a lot more fun now that I’m hanging out with Howie and Susie. We eat lunch together most days. And then there are the journal meetings. I feel like I’ve been asleep since last fall and I’m just waking up.

Emma has a friend here at DEER RUN. He’s Susie’s brother Matt. They played together last Sunday and invented a game in which they were cars at a gas station. It went on forever and I didn’t see any point to it, but they had a lot of fun.

Tara, you mentioned the baby in your last letter. Is it okay for me to bring up the subject now? I won’t if you don’t want me to. Just let me know.

Well, the next time I write I’ll tell you about the visit with my father. I want some answers, and he better give them to me.

Love,

P.S. Here’s an interesting thing concerning my father. He’s leaving, but I don’t feel sad or even like I’ll miss him that much. Mostly I feel angry. I feel like he left us a long, long time ago.