You would think the day we talked about his stories would be the day that I had a lot to say.

Mostly I stared out of the window behind the lecturer as he drawled. Mostly I thought about how one day I will be brave enough to sit down and write a letter to Lewis Nordan. I will be embarrassed for telling him that he is the reason that I write. I will probably forget to thank him for that in my excessive gratitude. Will It be short? Should I number the pages?

Typed?

Handwritten?

He's old now. I don't know how well he can see.

I thought about Sugar Mecklin and mermaids and finding a woman with perfect lips and eggshell skin in red slippers under the house. I thought about her over-the-sink kitchen window, abandoned somewhere.

I thought that it was all too sacred and magical to discuss anyway. I was a root, a vine, still and silent, attaching myself to the seat- weaving in as a part of the quiet. There were a thousand things buzzing in my mouth and I let not a one out from the roaring fear that I would gush my whole body onto the floor, vulnerable and ecstatic and afraid.

In the end, I didn't pay attention to any of it. My fierce, clawing attraction to the sticky words prevented me from listening at all.

Later in the crushing muteness of the library, I did not work on my paper. I worked on finding his address.