Aurelio,
Your absence this Winter makes for odd punctuation. The truth is, I may never see you again. I don’t know where things stand on your returning to South Carolina, so I prepare myself for a future without you.
In November, I read One Hundred Years of Solitude. What devastated me most was wanting to share it with you. I sat down to write the letter, but no words could come of it. Why not? Aurelio would love this book, I thought. But then again, it has been so long. How could I possibly know what you love if I let myself fall out of touch like this?
So let me share a book with you one more time while I still have the pen in my hand. It occurred to me at a point that I was only communicating with an echo of Aurelio. Twelve letters across fifteen months, and not until now did I realize the convenience of an always interested friend. Why yes, of course you want to hear about Allende, about Toni Morrison, about Rita Mae Brown. Of course you want to hear about my life, because what was …
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