Thomas, my boy:
I am writing this from the kitchen of our new house in Sylva, and I’m writing it exactly one month later than I intended. This letter, the sort that I write to you and your sisters exactly once every three years, is somehow overdue, but I feel that if you look back on this time—and goodness, what memories you’ll have of it going forward—you may very well understand.
The kitchen is a good enough place for writing because Mom bought a trio of barstools after she dropped you off at your new school, the one you started four weeks ago after break. Millie is stretched out on a bathroom mat spread out in the den floor; it’s comically too small, but somehow it ended up there, and it’s the right size for our young pup.
There are still boxes and boxes left to unpack and a couch and a bed down in the detached garage that we don’t know what to do with. We are still learning how to pull into and out of the steep driveway without scraping the bottoms of our cars.
All of which is to say, your ninth birthday fell in a maelstrom of life. In the last 80 days, the world you’ve spent your entire life in was turned upside down, then packed away, then upended once more.
It’s my fault.
