1. Erika Magnusson
Honors 401 Seminar
1 February 2013
Dear Daddy,
Mommy, brother and I are in a boxcar. The railroad track takes us where we don’t know.
Remember when we used to play train and conductor together when I was a little girl? I
guess this train is not ours to conduct. The track used to take us to a better place together.
We used to switch tracks, but you always had to help me pull the railroad switch. If I
wanted to switch tracks now, I couldn’t without you.
I guess your number on your collar was just too different from mommies, brothers and Is.
Don’t worry though… even if my number is different from yours you are still with me. I
wear my number on my collar just above the blue silk scarf you gave me!
Mommy probably didn’t tell you yet, but when you get home you have to fix the leak in
our ceiling. You’re the only one who can make the sunshine come out when it is raining.
Mommy said her prayers at home before the boxcar. I heard her whispering them to God
when I was listening to the rain hit the bucket (mommy put a bucket below the ceiling to
catch the rain). Everything was the sound of rain before we left. Even if the hole weren’t
in our ceiling it still would have all been rain. In the train window we saw a lake that
needs rain just like our crops. It was a lake that I found on the map. I kind of know where
we are. The lake was called Intermittent Lake because the rain only came sometimes. The
other times, the lake was a desert.
Dad, I saw a desert! Have you seen one of those? I couldn’t see where the lake was, or
how far you could swim if it was there. I could only see white earth. The sun was
scorching it and must have taken the rain away. Maybe one day the sun will go back in
the clouds and we can swim in the lake together. I promise to wear my lifejacket, and
then you won’t worry about me, right?
The people who lived by the lake must have not prayed for the rain to come this year.
Because ‘God is always listening’ like you used to say daddy. Maybe they didn’t know
the Lord like you and mommy do? So then, they would not have the choice to thank God
or Jesus Christ for the rain or to pray for it to come. I guess I’m like those people though
too. Brother and me hear rain all the time…the sound stayed with us even on the train… I
guess it drowns out all the other sound. But this rain, it is starting to flood our ears and
we are drowning in it. I would rather be like those people at Intermittent Lake (or the
desert now) because God has taken the rain away. I know God can’t take this rain away
right now. We are flooded in the boxcar and I’m scared were going to drown. Dad, I wish
you were the conductor. I cannot switch tracks for mommy or brother and I can’t take the
rain away either…I’m sorry.
I miss softball - you always told me I was your favorite pitcher. Dad, remember when
you used to be my catcher every day? You were my favorite catcher. Your target was the
best to hit. You always told me to never lose my arm and mommy would tell you I
haven’t… even though we’ve been riding this train for so long. I found a catcher that I
pretended was you. On the train they give us lemons and oranges. I practiced my throw

2. Erika Magnusson
Honors 401 Seminar
1 February 2013
with a lemon because the orange was good to eat. I promise I’m trying to keep mommy
and brother healthy and I wouldn’t put that good fruit to waste. I took that lemon in my
hand like a softball, I felt its yellow rind like the red threads on a softball, and it was all
the same. I was back at the diamond with you when I threw the lemon out the train
window. I saw where it landed too, in a snarled trunk of blackened sage. Your glove was
black so I imagined that it was you catching the lemon. I wanted to be the lemon - lost at
first, but then found when I landed in your arms. I couldn’t be the lemon though. I left
you behind in the desert. The train was still moving on the track and the blackened sage
was still with buried roots.
I feel sick because the boxcars are rocking. I am going to vomit, but I won’t because you
can’t rub my back to make me feel better. Other people threw up though. It is crowded in
the cars and it smells like vomit and oranges. It doesn’t smell like lemons though. I
imagine all of the peoples (lemons) are tangled in the blackened sage of their past.
They keep telling us to keep the shades down. If you were a man standing outside the
train, you couldn’t see mommy, brother or me. You would see a train with black
windows and we would be so close without you or me knowing. The train would pass
you by and you would pass us by. We would be farther from being a family together
again. Dad, maybe you are in the dark too. Mommy, brother and I are hidden behind the
shades - naked only to darkness … where we are missing from the world we used to
know.
Mommy doesn’t close her eyes in the darkness. The shades of the train always go down,
but the shades of her eyelids never do. Maybe yours don’t either. I think she doesn’t close
her eyes because she knows she can imagine you. Mommy still loves you Daddy.
Brother still likes horses a lot. Last summer we stayed in the old horse stalls in the stables
behind the racetrack. I think that is where he started to love the big animals. But I don’t
get why? We were like horses there. We washed our faces in the tin troughs they drank
from and we slept on the same straw. Maybe this is why he loved them… because he was
‘closer’ to them…living a horse’s life. Or maybe it is because he knows a warrior hero
usually rides a horse- did he want to be the warrior hero for momma and I? Or, did he
dream of you coming for us on a horse? To rescue us? Maybe it was because the horses
got to leave the stalls and we didn’t?
Outside the train window and a long ways away from the train, brother knew there was a
wide empty field where nothing but sagebrush grew. The wide empty field was for the
horse’s freedom, but the sagebrush was for brother. If brother was a lemon and he was
stuck in the deserts sagebrush …maybe a horse would have carried him away.
Dad, I have a confession to make, the blue scarf you got me from Paris isn’t what I really
wanted. What I really wanted was perfume. I used to think that because you bought me a
blue scarf the last time you went to Paris… and the time before that… I wouldn’t care
much for a blue scarf anymore. Now, the blue scarf you gave me is all I ever wear. The
edges of the blue scarf are frayed and worn… brother pointed that out to me. But I like it

3. Erika Magnusson
Honors 401 Seminar
1 February 2013
that way- it is like I have been wearing you for a long time now. Dad, thank you for the
new blue silk scarf and Serenade perfume for my birthday. The old blue silk scarf
remained worn and frayed, yet unraveled… and when it did unravel I would have another
from you. The blue silk scarf will never truly unravel from my neck and you are with
me… for however long you are gone.
I had to use my scarf for brother. He was sick and I gave it to him to cough in. I hope that
is okay. I would love another scarf (even if it is the same one) if you ever travel again.
Dad, here we all have to play something (real or not). I used to like playing house or dolls
with you, but I don’t want to play anymore. I just want to be me.
We wait for the day to be over here. Do you wait to? Maybe brother was right… we
should be more like the horses. We could gallop away together when the shades aren’t
down anymore. We could find a new home where there are no train tracks. The horses
will take us where we need to be even if the shades are down.
P.S. Daddy I’m sick of camping out. When will I get to go home? When will we get to go
home again?
P.P.S. I left more then the lemon in the desert. You used to tell me about a message in the
bottle, and if we were at sea I would have left you a message in a bottle…but we weren’t
at sea. Chu, Chu! Chu, Chu! Instead I wrote my name on a 6 of clubs card and slipped it
out the car window. Who is it that will find my message on a card in a desert? Only you
daddy…only you.
P.P.P.S. I am asking this for brother: when will we see him (he, who is our rescuer) and
will he ride in on an enormous white horse by the sea?
I love you Daddy.
For now… I need to let the shades fall down. Maybe soon they will open and I will see
you.
Now is not our time to play catch again.
Love your daughter.