Ohio state outline with home script and heart

The bus from Columbus put me down outside the petrol station at twenty to seven, and I walked the last four miles with the case banging against my shin because I could not face asking anyone for a lift. The road still has the same pothole by the chapel. I counted it twice, the way we used to, and it was still there, which I took as a kind of welcome.

I know you think I am sentimental about the map. You laughed when I pinned it up over the sink in the flat, and Mrs Pryce upstairs asked whether I was planning to sell the state. But I sat with the pencil for an hour last night and drew the outline again from memory, the notch at the top where the lake comes in, the long jag along the bottom where the river bends. It came out lopsided, but it was close enough that I knew my own handwriting when I wrote HOME down the west side, leaning hard, the way Mam wrote our names on every jar.

The heart is where you'd expect, nowhere near a town. It's the kitchen table, if you want to know, the one with the burn from Dad's cigarette that nobody would let us sand out. I put it low in the middle because that's where the weight of everything sits, and I wanted it to look small enough to carry.

Ring me Sunday. Bring the good tea, not the bags. And tell Tommy his boots are still under the stairs, where he left them.

Love, Bet