SEVENTEEN
LETTER FROM THE FUTURE NUMBER 3
Hi, Daddy!
It’s S, your daughter. This is so weird! I don’t understand why I have to write you because you just left on the boat with Papa, and Horatio the dolphin was there, like always, to keep you company.
Momma says you’re sad, but she also says that we’re writing to you when you were a little boy, which I don’t really understand. She makes me do a lot of strange school assignments, so I guess this is just another of those. You tell me to listen to Momma, so I do. She’s helping me write the letter. She says I should tell you things you already know about me, which seems dumb, but here it goes.
My favorite color is dolphin gray.
My favorite constellation is Cassiopeia, because it’s so much fun to say!
My favorite food is corn chowder with bacon. (Ha-ha! Joke!) My favorite game is Who lived here? I love listening to the stories you make up about what it was like to live in the city underwater—what you call Philadelphia.
Once we found an apartment in an old skyscraper you called Liberty Place and you told me how some people used to live like kings and queens in the sky, looking down on all the people who had to live near the ground, but now you have to be really rich to live on the ground these days, which you said is ironic.
We went through the home and found dresses that proved a queen had lived there. The dresses were shiny and colorful. There were so many! And you said your mother had designed one of them, which was nice because you never talk about your mom.
And we found a chest of gold jewelry in the bedroom too. You let me keep the gold we found. We’ve been collecting gold from chests like that all over Outpost 37. I keep it under my bed just for fun in old poly-frozen food containers, although I really don’t understand why people in the past loved gold so much, other than it’s shiny. You call me a princess and sometimes we put on as much gold as we can, and you call me “Jay-Z,” and then laugh so hard.
My favorite bedtime story is Philadelphia Phyllis, the little girl who used to solve crime mysteries back at the turn of the century. You tell me so many Philadelphia Phyllis stories, and my favorite is the one where she stops a bully from picking on kids at school when she finds a magical weapon that gives her power. I often wish there were other kids here, but your stories about bullies make me wonder if I’m lucky it’s only me.
My favorite song is the one your dad wrote called “Underwater Vatican,” which you sing for me sometimes, because you miss your dad. (Mom helped me spell Vatican and says it’s where some important guy used to live but she couldn’t really explain why he was important. She says we don’t have guys like him anymore.) Daddy, I can’t think of anything else to write.
I love you.
I’m sorry that you were sad when you were a little boy, but you’re hardly ever sad now, which is good, right?
Momma says I should tell you to hold on.
Hold on to what? I wonder.
I don’t know.
But hold on.
There, I wrote that. Mom better give me full credit for this assignment.
Can’t wait to see you at dinner tonight. I think we are having corn chowder with bacon AGAIN, because that’s what we have the most of, so we have to save the other types of food for special occasions like birthdays, and mine’s coming up in a week or so. You said you have a really special surprise for me.
I wonder what it is!
You never ever forget my birthday and you always make it special.
Is it true you don’t have a birthday, like you said?
I wish I knew when your birthday was, because I would find you the best birthday present ever. Horatio would help me search Outpost 37 until we had the perfect prize.
Why won’t you tell me when your birthday is?
Mom says it has to do with bad memories.
Why don’t I have any bad memories? I ask her, and she says it’s because I have such a good dad.
That makes me smile.
You are a good dad!
Love ya!
S, your “Jay-Z Princess”
(What is a “Jay-Z”? You never tell me!)