Stay Strong script with feather on shoulder

The bus from Barstow dropped me at a petrol station with one pump and a dog asleep under it, and I have been sitting on the kerb since six waiting for the mechanic from Baker to come out with his van. He says the fan belt is shot. He says a lot of things, most of them about the heat. The road out here runs straight as a ruler for forty miles, and the mirage keeps lifting water off the tarmac just ahead of me, so I've stopped looking at it.

Your father would have laughed at me sitting here with a notebook. I found a feather this morning in the gravel by the bins, black at the tip and grey at the root, the kind a crow drops and nobody notices. I've pressed it into the back cover of this pad. I know it's daft. But it was the only thing out here that looked like it had been through weather and was still doing its job.

I keep thinking about the last time you rang from the flat and said you didn't know whether to stay in the job or go. You said it so quietly I nearly missed it, and I should have said more than I did. So here is the more: you have never once in your life quit something halfway because it got hard, and you are not going to start now because a manager has a face like a slammed door.

The van's just pulled in. The dog has woken up and is following it about. I'll post this from Baker, and I'll ring you Sunday.

Stay strong, love. I mean it the way I used to mean it when you were small and scared of the dark. Hold on, and keep your head up.

Mum