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    I wish you could come back east sometime. You’d love it here, Carrie. It’s so beautiful in the fall. The leaves on the trees turn incredible colors. I mean orange. A few weeks ago some friends and I drove up into Vermont. There are all these little villages, too perfect to be real: rolling green lawns, old farmhouses, tiny white churches, and corner stores stuffed with everything you could possibly need, from bunion pads to sleigh bells. I even found some of those big red cinnamon balls like Grammy used to have in the pantry, remember? She kept them up high, in that big brown crock, where we (supposedly) couldn’t reach them .
    Which reminds me: I confess. I’m the one who kept eating the Tang. I dug it out of the jar with a spoon. You little guys always took the rap. I owe you .
    This is my last year of school, theoretically. But I’ve decided (don’t tell Papa yet) that I don’t want to be an English teacher. I’m going to go for my M.A., so I can be (drum roll, please) a counselor; specifically, an M.F.C.C., which means Marriage, Family, and Children’s Counselor. There’s only about five million of them already. But that’s okay, because the world needs us .
    I think I would be a good counselor. I like people (most people) and am pretty good at figuring out what makes them tick. To me, that’s the most fascinating thing there is — people and their stories .
    Papa will think it’s hogwash. He was never too crazy (yuk yuk) about all those shrinks who treated Mama, and frankly, I’m not sure they helped. There are good therapists and bad ones. Some people get into the profession because they’re so messed up themselves that they need the illusion (delusion) of being in control: an expert .
    I don’t think that’s my problem. I’ve gotten some counseling, mostly in groups run through the college, and it’s really been helpful. I wish you’d consider it, if you’re feeling down in the dumps. At first it’s scary because you’re afraid that if you say how you feel, or what you think, people will think you’re nuts. But they don’t. Anyway, it’s been good for me. There was so much I had to figure out, about our family .
    I always told people (and myself) that my childhood was perfect. But it wasn’t. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but our family is a little, uh, how should I put this, strange. Depressing. That’s the word. Depressed. It’s like there’s an invisible cloud over our house. The family fog. You can’t see it, but it sure gets in your face .
    When I was a kid I couldn’t understand why our house felt so different than my friends’ houses. Not that their families didn’t have problems too. My psych professor says that most American families are dysfunctional, to one degree or another .
    Our family is dysfunctional to the nth degree. The tenth power. I know you’ll think I’m disloyal for saying that. But the longer I’m away from home, the clearer it becomes to me .
    It’s not like I remember bad things happening, like murder or mayhem or screaming. It’s more what didn’t happen. Something was missing. Fun. It was always so tense there, know what I mean? We never knew when Mama might get worse, or why, and Papa was always so worried .
    But nobody talked about it! That was the weirdest thing of all! The situation was never discussed. No matter what was happening, we pretended things were great. I guess they thought we were too little to notice. An ambulance comes and takes Mama away, and what does Papa say? “Finish your dinner.” !!!
    For all us kids knew, it was all our fault. Maybe we’d driven her insane, that’s what I thought. Mama wasn’t cut out to have children. Parakeets, maybe; goldfish, sure; but not kids. One minute she’s there, and