It was one page, on lined paper torn from a spiral notebook, and the handwriting was careful and square and a little cramped, the handwriting of a man who did not write many letters.
Captain Mansour, it said. I won't take much of your time. I wanted you to know I don't work security anymore. I'm not saying that so you'll feel some kind of way about it. It's just so you know. I'm doing parts counter at a marine supply in Nederland now. It's all right. My son is still on the line gang. He is fine. He says to tell you he moves now, the first time, whenever anybody says move.
I drove over to Houston last Saturday and rode the Lynchburg Ferry. I don't know why. I rode it back and forth maybe five times. The man that runs it asked was I okay. On the third trip a pilot boat came up alongside a tanker going up the channel and a pilot went up the ladder. I couldn't tell from that far if it was a man or a woman. I stood there and thought, I guess I can't tell. I guess that's the whole thing.
I am not asking you for anything. I just wanted to say, I know what I said to you. I have it written down too.
Respectfully,
Wade Toups
She read it twice. Then she folded it along its creases and put it back in the inside pocket, next to her father's rug, and zipped the pocket closed. She did not know yet whether she would answer it. She thought she might. She thought she might not. She thought it was possible that she would carry it in that pocket for a long time without deciding, the way you carry some things, and that this was allowed.
The pilot boat came alongside the tanker, matching its speed, the two hulls running side by side through the gray water with a long white seam of foam between them. The rope ladder hung down the tanker's black flank, swaying, its wooden steps slick with spray. Rania put on her gloves. She checked her bag, the way her father had taught her, even though she had checked it already. She watched the swell, waiting for the top of a rise, when the boat would lift her as close as it could get.
Then she stepped across, and took hold, and began to climb.