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Thursday 3/8/90
Dear Harry
It was Dad's birthday last week, I wanted to send him a card but Mom said she doesn't know where he lives or works anymore. It's like he just dropped off the face of the earth. Maybe he'd rather not get a card from me anyway. I don't know. Sometimes I think it might be easier if he died and I wasn't waiting for him to turn up one day, but then I feel guilty for thinking that. But at least if he'd died, it probably wouldn't have been my fault he isn't here. Mom tells me it isn't my fault anyway, that it was her illness he was too weak to handle, and blames him for his weakness. But the fact that she begged him to take me with him but he refused, and that he hasn't come to visit or even called me in more than eighteen months means that he doesn't want to be my father anymore. I thought he loved me. I knew he was disappointed that I wasn't better at T-ball or more interested in sports or more like a normal kid but I still thought he loved me. Was he fooling me my whole life, or did something change? And if so, what was it? I understand that knowing what it was won't do me any good now with him because he isn't coming back but I'd like to know what it was. I don't want anyone else in my life to leave me like that.
I've still been reading a lot about space theory and the origins of the universe. I find facts more interesting than fiction a lot of the time.
I've had to read Romeo and Juliet for school this term, but don't try and read it now, there's at least a thirty percent chance they'll inflict it on you in your last two years of high school. It's in old English which you'd find very heavy reading now, I don't mean to insult your language skills but a lot of our class still had trouble with it but it's a classic by one of the most famous playwrights in history, if he really did write it which some scholars doubt he did. Anyway, he's famous for the way he words things so schools want to study the original not some modern English translation. If you must read his work pick one of the comedies or histories. As for Romeo and Juliet, basically the story boils down to a melodramatic plot where two young people from opposite sides of a family feud fall in love and go to ridiculous lengths to be together and it all falls apart from a stupid degree of lack of communication with each other. One pretends to die so they can run off and be together without being searched for but neglects to tell the other what they're going to do so they think their love is really dead and commit suicide, the other wakes up and finds out what they'd done and kills themselves too. It's totally absurd, and this is supposed to be one of the most famous love stories of all time. Mom loved it when she studied it, we even argued about it.
Aside from school work I've been reading War and Peace by Tolstoy. It's set during Napoleon's invasion of Russia but from a couple of Russian people's point of view and is a bit historical and a bit romance and war story. I really enjoyed it. It's one of the books I would like to reread in Russian when I learn it. I would recommend you read it but perhaps not for a few years. Mom's also been reading Tristan and Isolde to me, it's about a knight that goes to Ireland to court a princess for his guardian the King to marry and they fall in love. I don't know if I believe in love like that that makes people abandon their duty and honour and common sense, but as a famous classic love story it is far more palatable that Romeo and Juliet. It's perhaps not really suitable for a nine year old though, a little too much French romance. Stick to your adventure books and enjoy what little childhood you've been allowed to have, Harry. Don't be in too much of a hurry to read adult books. You don't need to pretend to be more grown up to have things in common with me.
I know you are too much of a people person to want to work alone all day but I'm not like you, for me at the moment the thought of having a job with my own lab or office where I spent most of my time alone and had control over who else could enter it sounds like a dream come true. I wouldn't have to worry about sounding weird for being interested in everything and scientists are expected to be a bit strange. Nobody would criticise me for it.
You're right though that it will take discipline to limit myself to one field of research like that, and I'd have to find a university or company that wanted to employ me to search for the cure. And that it's possible I may be too emotionally invested in finding a cure for Mom to be entirely pragmatic and scientific about the research.
Give my thanks to the people at the restaurant that receive my letters for you, and take care that you don't starve. I hope you are well and that the Dursleys aren't hurting you. It's great that you have your power thing more under control and can use it to make sure you're not locked up without sufficient food and water. Be careful though, if it's like muscles or card counting abilities it will get stronger the more you use it. If it does get out of your control again it could cause bigger things to happen than in the past.
Your friend
Spencer
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.