The first letter from her fell from his weathered hand to land on the floor at his feet. It seemed so fragile there, a taste of yellowish white on the brown wood. He could see his response on the back, written in a childish hand of 9.

He remembered how they had kept in contact after that, through letters in that same bush. He learned that her parents had not been happy when she had discussed with them the ‘wild’ boy she had met at the park.

The first few days, they had thought she was referring to a rough child, but one day they sat (unbeknownst to the two) and watched as she walked quickly from the car to a bush and sat talking to a figure they couldn’t quite see in the dusk for the hour she had scheduled for play. That night they questioned her more closely and then called the police.

They wouldn’t permit her to go unattended to the park anymore. They would have forbidden her to go to that park at all, but changing parks wasn’t allowed and fortunately the caretaker didn’t check for letters.