Dear K.,
I’m writing to you from a future that hopefully exists and in which we know each other only as writing moms, not survivors of men who hated and hit us. There is a beach with sand that comes right off our pedicured feet, and crisp Chardonnay in bottomless, shatterproof crystal. Our sons are playing in the surf, taking turns begging us to look, and we do because the books are finished and sold well and there are no court dates or panic attacks or victim-blamey Facebook threads to police, hell, even the sharks and jellyfish smile at us. Yes, you are beside me in a teak Adirondack chair, but I write anyway because it’s my fantasy and I wish to close the distance but not give up the pen. We don’t ask each other if we slept well because we did. We don’t have to wear sunscreen but we lather it on the boys because it’s the most beautifully normal thing to do and because they kiss and splash us when we call them up—but not to go, because we never have to drop them off anywhere. You tell me about your trips; I tell you about a new risotto. We read aloud, Instagram our boys landscaping the beach with their bodies because there is finally no metaphor for systemic misogyny here. We are able to see the shells on the beach as pendants or paperweights, not allegories for abandoned homes. We are blissfully unaware that we made this water and everything in it—someone else dug these chasms, someone else filled them with salt and pain, gave them a tide. We put up our pink toes and take only the sun on our faces.
xo S.
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another writing mom 