Chapter Four

     One night after work I was sitting on the edge of my mother's bed, reading her Lucy's letter.
     "Save all of those," she told me when I was finished.
     "I save some of them," I said, but she and I both knew I never was much on saving anything.
     My mother said it again. I was to save them all. "Someday you'll both be famous writers," she said. "And these letters will be very important to you."

--Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty

I save those long letters from friends faraway. I tuck them inside my journal. They are the extra pages of my book, and the book has become quite thick and ajar since I've tucked them all in. 

I love letters. I love photographs. Anything that contains the essence of a person. I even keep the article about open source with daddy's picture in it, even though I have no technological understanding of what great work he does. I keep your emails too, Mrs. Bell! (I know--this is beginning to sound like some fan letter...) 

I'm glad Ann read Lucy's letter to Mrs. Patchett. I'm glad Mrs. Patchett told her daughter to save them. I wonder how she knew Ann and Lucy were both going to be famous. She was more right than the fortune teller who told Ann she was forever going to be with Dennis (whom she divorced a year after their marriage) and told Lucy nobody's ever going to find her (Ann did!). I should listen to my mom more.