You should know this letter’s been coming by the time you pick it up. Assuming I remember to warn you. We’ve spent so many years like this, and yet, when I’m given the luxury of speaking to you, an hour slips away in seconds. Every important thing I meant to tell you goes out the door. Last week, I meant to tell you the peonies started wilting, but when I saw you, I forgot all about them. That happens a lot these days. I’ve been trying to keep them hydrated, but I’m never quite living in the moment unless I’m talking to you, and that makes me upset.

I told Dr. Vrubel about this. We’ve been moving back to weekly sessions, so I’ve been letting Jen take over the shop on Tuesday mornings. I’m glad she referred me to this doc, because I think he might be the right fit. He’s a kid, actually, just a couple years out of school; he’s a bit more new age, not condescending like the last one. We discussed how I can carry that “living in the moment” feeling into other aspects of my life. I showed him some new dream journals this past week. We talked them through a bit, but then he suggested I write them to you. The prison has no limit on mail.

Letters feel so impractical these days, don’t they? We live in the same town, yet we need to resort to pens to say everything we need to. It makes me feel insignificant. I’ve made time to write to you now, yet I’ll lose my power over these words after I send them. They’ll take days, maybe weeks to reach you. It reminds me how light from the stars takes years to reach us. Our insignificance has been something I’ve thought about lately, spurred by cloudless nights of constellation watching. What do years mean on this scale, when we can pull back and still see it paint a picture across the sky? And us, who are designed to find patterns, recognize something nearly intentional in the randomness of it all.

I’m rambling. Dr. Vrubel said that’s okay. He told me to write my stream of consciousness. The purpose of my letter is to tell you about my dream.

I’ve had it a couple times over the past couple weeks. It starts with me at the kitchen table, sitting with my parents. We wait for a bit, talking through mundanities: my work, the weather, new recipes Mom’s trying out. Dad’s got me a little nervous, just like he always does. Then, the grandfather clock chimes, and they both get up in a hurry. They have to get going for something they don’t explain. They take their chairs, too, leaving just me and your empty seat. Just as I run out to the hall to ask them to give them back, they disappear.

Then I notice the windows are boarded. For some reason, I get the feeling that you’re coming. I rake my claws at the wood, which is so flimsy that it splits on contact. When I punch through, I don’t feel glass against my fist. It lodges between metal bars. Then I’m gripping them, trying to pry them apart, but they won’t budge. But then I hear footsteps behind me. I turn around. It’s you.

The details always turn out funny. The floor’s a different type of wood, and the fridge is in the wrong spot. It’s 28 o’clock and light outside, with your flowers in full bloom, but it all makes sense in the moment. In that moment I’m already in your arms. You make some quip about that scene with the weasels from Husband Hour. I challenge you to pick me up the same way. Somehow, you lift me up like a bride and give me a kiss that feels just like the real thing.

I asked Dr. Vrubel if he was gonna read my dreams. He has a knack for cutting these Gordian knots I think myself into. But he told me he wasn’t going to analyze them for me. I pointed out that my last therapist said dreams are the random synthesis of memories. Dr. Vrubel didn’t disagree, but he reassured me I can find the patterns and meaning I need to find.

I tell you I need you. You smile and nod, and tell me we’ve got a lot of time; as much time as we need. You don’t explain how you got here, but it doesn’t matter. I close my eyes and soak it in. Then I force them open, afraid you’ll disappear if I'm not watching.

I don’t know how we get out of the house, but we do. We’re standing in line at some complex that looks like a shopping mall, but there’s an airfield outside a gargantuan window. You’re talking to me, but I can’t hear you because I’m just noticing how nice your jumpsuit is, and how it suddenly seems to match your scales. I wonder why you haven’t changed yet. Then we’re stepping up to board a flight together. They let you on ahead, but they hold me up and tell me I need to go home. You sigh, grab my hand, and pull me down the jet bridge and into our seats. We’re in the air before security comes to kick me off. You put your arm around my shoulders. Then your arm becomes our covers and I wake up in bed.

These dreams have been a pleasant reprieve. It’s always nice to wake up happier than I was when I crawled into bed, even if this feeling blends with that twinge of disappointment. It’s not real, and it won’t be real for years, but it feels real in the moment. That memory helps push me through days of worrying about you, the shop, my health, and the next family holiday.

Speaking of which, Dad and I have been getting along better. I was at my parents’ place last weekend and I joked about betting a year of your sentence on billiards. Dad actually chuckled and told me not to play against house money. I offered to buy any home renovation he wanted for the next ten years, and he told me my bribes were better spent on his employees. I answered I don’t know them as well, which might not be that true. I’ve been getting pretty chummy with Rowen, that patrol deer on your floor. Last time I came in he went, “the usual?” like some kid working a restaurant.

Fuck.

I look forward to seeing you on Sunday. Maybe then we can start talking about my next private visit, since I need it. It helps break me out of that pattern of waking up, working, and falling asleep. It helps me gain more perspective on this endless wait than hearing your voice or only speaking to you in the presence of prison staff. It gives me a glimpse of the end of this tunnel: that someday I won’t feel caged in, and I won’t need therapy to stay happy. I won’t wake up to an empty bed. I won’t have to write letters that other people will read just to talk to my husband. I might have to slim down for you to pick me up like the bride in that film.

It’ll still be long, but I’m starting to understand. I’ve been working not to live in my memories, and I’ve stopped fretting over the peonies: they’re just a brief symbol for something evergreen. Above all, I’m holding onto what you said to me in the fall.

And now, I think I’ve found the strength to wait for you.

Love,

Your badger