When hope fades, it leaves a trace of what was once hope, a sometimes cruel reminder. Hope isn ’t binary. It doesn’t go from on to off. It runs out in gradual measures until at some point there isn’t enough anymore to say “There is hope,” but there is still something.

It had been two weeks since the hearing. No call from Michael. He had the number on his speed dial. Now he was sitting at the kitchen table. There was an envelope with the stamp Marty had given him, a pad of paper with lines of words, strings of words, fragments of his feelings that spilled out on the page. The phone was cradled on his neck. He let it ring, ten, twenty, maybe fifty times. He lost count, staring down at his inability to simply say, “This is me.”

Ten o’clock. He had to be at Bob Pirraglia’s office by eleven to sign the new Marc Jackson contract. His flight to L.A. from Newark left at one. “I’ll start on it again in the park. I just need some air.” He put the pad of paper in his backpack, grabbed the duffel bag, and headed out.

Sitting on his bench, he was about a half a block closer to the L train than he had been at the kitchen table, but no closer to knowing how to put his feelings into a letter. He noticed the rap dancer with his boom box practicing his routine for no one else. In the corner of the park there was a circuit training area. A shirtless guy with a Walkman was doing pull-ups.

In the grass in front of the bench was a squirrel standing up on its hind legs, checking him out. He took a piece of the peanut butter Promax bar he was eating and tossed it in the squirrel’s direction. It landed a few feet in front of him, but he didn’t go for it. Dan understood his reticence.

“Hey, Meester.” She was practically standing in front of him before he noticed her.

“Meester, I do a reading for you. Fi dollars.”

“Huh?” He looked up.

“Psychic reading. Fi dollars.” .

“Oh.” Dan gave her the “aw shucks” look. “No, thank you. I’m trying to write a letter and I only have a few minutes.”

“You have fi dollars. I give you a good reading.” Slight build, gray hair, Slavic, she could have been Russian or Ukrainian, Slovenian, not that it made any difference to him. “Gimme your hand.” She reached out hers and beckoned as she sat down next to him.

“I don’t have much time,” he replied as he extended his hand cautiously.

“I see a long life. You live a long life.”

“Right, isn’t that what they always say.”

“You have a gooood strong heart, a gooood heart.” She had his right hand, facing up, in her two hands, her thumbs pressing each side of his palm like she was opening it up, exposing the lines. “But there is an energy in your life that you must understand.”

Dan noticed the squirrel, still eyeing the piece of the Promax bar.

“A turtle, I see a turtle by a lake. You know about the turtle and the scorpion, yes?”

“Um… I don’t… but I don’t think I have time.”

She was working the skin on the palm of his hand as if there were something in there that she was trying to force out, like a splinter. They were looking right at each other. He noticed she had a cataract in her right eye.

“The turtle, he lives by the edge of a beautiful lake. One day a scorpion comes to where the turtle lives. The turtle, he is safe in his shell, but the scorpion knows that he is lonely, yes?”

Dan looked down.

“The scorpion saays, ‘Give me a ride on your back and I will show you a place on the other side of the lake where you will be happy.’ The turtle is afraid but he thinks of the scorpion’s promise and he knows the scorpion cannot swim.”

The wrinkles in the skin of her face looked like the patterns of waves a rock makes when it splashes in the water.

“So the turtle gives the scorpion a ride on his back and they are crossing the lake. But then he feels this terrible pain.” She squeezed his hand. “And he knows that he will soon be paralyzed. He saays to the scorpion, ‘Why did you do that? Now we will both drown.’ And the scorpion, he saays, ‘Because I am a scorpion, and scorpions sting.’”

Dan pulled his hand lightly.

She held on and stared into his eyes. “You have someone with veery strong energy in your life, veery strong energy, but you do not understand it.”

“How could she know about him?”

“You must understand this energy or you will both suffer. I can help you. I have special crystals.”

Dan noticed that the squirrel was gone. A pigeon swooped down to take his offering.

“Two hundred dollars. Thees are veery special crystals.”

Dan pulled his hand away. He was suddenly alert, but disoriented, as if he had been jarred awake. “Lady, I don’t want any crystals.” He reached in his pocket. “Here’s your five dollars.”

She put her hand on his leg. “One hundred dollars. I do it for you, one hundred dollars.”

Dan grabbed his backpack and duffel bag and hurried away.

“Meester!”

When he got to the corner of Tenth Street and Avenue A, there was a mailbox. He sat down on a bench, pulled the pad out of his backpack, and wrote. He didn’t have time to think of what he had wanted to say. He dropped the letter in the mailbox like the castaway who trusts his message in a bottle to the sea. He wanted to be discovered.