Dear Wigleaf,

I did not feel right when I left you this time. You were laid out on your couch, sick as an underdressed little kid allowed to stay in the snow too long. Watery eyes, a cough deep in your chest, the whole bit. Do you remember any of this? And I remember wandering around your kitchen. Waiting for my ride to the airport. And I watched you from the end of the counter where you keep that sculptural drip coffee gizmo, feeling shy and not understanding it—why I could not bring myself to go to you on the couch. Hold your hand a few minutes, whatever. But I had gone ahead and booked this flight back home. Because you'd said over and over how you were ready for some space. And Wigleaf, I just didn't know what to do. And I know you hate when I say this, but all I could do was leave. But now that I am sitting here, a couple thousand miles east of you, body snug against my own kitchen table, occasionally pausing from writing you to stare at the dormant rhododendron through my window, I am not so sure I ever did leave. Because sometimes in the morning, my eyes not yet open, a hard-frost chill settled into me from the night before, I can hear the Afrobeat of your music in the living room. And I hear you in the doorway asking me if that was me you heard giggling? Am I awake?

Anyway, wherever I am, I love you very much,

Miriam