RUNNING

I’m Frankenstein’s monster, lying in the cleanest room I’ve ever seen. I just woke up to a card from Bette lying on the table next to my hospital bed with just a big, blank circle that she drew, it says “get better”

Flowers from the Townsends

Flowers from Maddie

Flowers from Stuart

But the card made me cry because it continually reminds me of what I forgot

I got lost on the route around the mountain, past town

It reminds me of the maps we used to draw

When she and Harry and Coop and me (Davy was too small) would spend the day circling through Strafford, first running down the mountain, then running to the creek, then running into Strafford, saying hello to Fast Eddy where he sits outside the general store—Fast Eddy, the self-appointed policeman who also acts as the mailman—and then into the general store for Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper, then running back to the creek for lunch, then running back up the mountain to the backyard to play giants, then dinner

Once we drew a map of our world and plotted our route, and of course it was very simple

It was just a circle, and it was enough