“Damn,” she whispered. Each sheet bore at least a few paragraphs, but they were inadequate—either too subtle (her mother would think she was hiding something) or too full of small talk (which her mother disliked) or too enmeshed in weighty philosophizing about her “new life” (her mother would believe she was being pretentious or, which was worse, idealistic). But this last one came close, didn’t it? She picked it up from the desk. Dear Mom, I’m sorry about that depressing phone call. Expect better from this. The house has changed, so my mood has changed. Not that I’m “comfortable” here yet, but I’m getting there. The work we’ve done has helped. The mess we found the house in three weeks ago shocked us both—it was like a slap in the face, especially for Paul and all the plans he’d made. We actually thought about going back. Even now I don’t know why we didn’t.
