The Lantern 2014-2015

You: (Laugh because you know English majors make no money and also because you hate analyzing literature) Good luck with that.

Me: (Pretending to be offended) Well, good luck with physics.

You: (Laughs) I’ll need it. (A pause) Sorry, what’s your name again?

Me: Mara.

You: That’s pretty. I’m Amy. Me: (Smiling. I already knew your name.) Nice to meet you.

But you didn’t major in physics. You became a math teacher because you weren’t sure what else to do, and that’s how we ended up in Maryland. What if that happens to me? Where will I end up?

You didn’t call your parents for a while when you came to college, to stave off homesickness. You were so far away you might have crept up to the observatory and tried to find Ohio with a telescope. You weren’t allowed up there, but you went anyway with new friends, giggly and scared of the dark, scared of the door that might lock behind you. You made it to a wide, circular room, then up, up the rickety spiral stair to the very top, pushing away fear you couldn’t show. You might have looked to the stars and thought that they were the same ones over your house, all brick and stately and still filled with light. You might have done all that, because that’s what I did.

You did call them, finally, and you had to stand out in the hall where the phone was. Probably everyone could hear you saying how much you missed them.

They missed you too.

It was cold, February, but they were sad and missing you. Al suggested a picnic. They all knew it was ridiculous—a picnic in winter!—but they wanted something fun. Nanny told me about that.

She laughed but she said it was cold and miserable then. Was there snow on the ground? A frozen picnic blanket, red and white checked and stiff as a board?

When he first came to the mountains, his life was far away.

(John Denver.)

We both went to Pennsylvania. It has mountains somewhere—I think we drive through them on our way to Christmas. Neither of us had a life here.

You told me I’d be homesick. You were right. When I got here all I could do was write about you and Dad. 91