My first day

Her mother had secretly thrown away the letters that her True Love had sent, she told me. He was a sailor. On the other side of the phone, the Minnesota white snow surrounded me with the bright blandness of white rice. She was in Rhode Island, where I'd like to imagine the sky being bluer and where "R"s fall off at the end of each word. She paused to catch her breath. I could hear a suppressed sob in the back of her throat. After she'd married someone else ("a real jerk"), her True Love showed up at her "front doah" and asked her to run away with him to Muskegon, Michigan. I don't remember why she didn't go, but she said she never saw him again. "I'd much prefah the Midwest dry cold to this. It's damp and get into yah bones."