Dear Wigleaf,

Forgive me, I'm thinking again of Samuel de Champlain's missing body and how it is that the founder of Quebec could vanish without a trace. What if we had misplaced George Washington's body? Anyway, it's raining today. That kind of cool, silvery rain you get at the tail end of summer, light as piano keys. I like to walk to the end of the driveway and back a few times every day, and I got caught in the rain today, but I didn't mind. Being cold allows you to feel your body in ways you're never aware of when you're safe inside. I know where all my bones are in the rain. After I dried off, I cut myself a slice of frozen Pepperidge Farm cake. I watched the curls of chilled—what? Condensation?—drift off the chocolate before my fork sunk into the cake, then into the harder fudge edge. The kitchen would grow humid as soon as the rain stopped, I knew that, so I ate quickly. And now I'm writing this. We're close enough to share our hopes, right? I don't want to be a burden. I want to be successful. I don't know what form success will take, not exactly, but that's what I dream about at night. Maybe all it means is knowing that after I see my last summer rain, I'll be buried and my loved ones will remember what they did with what's left.