19December 1988
Two days before Christmas, we got Evelyn’s first published book in the mail. She'd officially started the process a handful of months earlier; she'd thrown herself into her first project, the one from high school, the library, as soon as we'd gotten the apartment. Between working weird hours at different jobs, she was writing, fine tuning, filling in the blanks, completing what she'd started years ago. In my opinion, that was probably more therapeutic than running off had been. That—along with taking care of her lily—made her seem happier than I'd seen her since she'd gotten pregnant.
It was a paperback, a good weight in my hands, the cover like a glossy journal page, a faded brown color and typewriter print. Her picture was in the bottom corner of the back cover, next to
