November 29th, 2001

Dear Henry,

Well, today is your very first Thanksgiving. It's also the first time I've tried to celebrate the holiday in a long time. Up until now I can't say there's a lot I have to be thankful for but that all changed this year, thanks to you. I have you to be thankful for if nothing else in my life. If all the crap and terrible things that have happened have been leading to you, my son, well then it was worth it.

All in all, things could be much worse for us. We're still at the shelter which is now a much tighter fit thanks to the cold weather. I may not have mentioned it in my last letter but we moved from Arizona which is not my favorite place in the first place. We left there transferring instead to Boston a small change but I prefer cities, always have. Towns are too quiet for me and Arizona has always been too hot plus I needed a change. Now, that we're here which happened a week or so after my last letter we found a place to live. An older woman rents the downstairs of her house out. Instead of paying all the rent she had been asking she cut a deal with me instead. However, I must say I believe it benefits me more than her. The deal is I pay her $200 a month to cover utilities and such. She'll watch you during the day while I'm at work and I'll have dinner with her. She owns the house and rents it out to have company so she won't be so lonely, the fact that I have you only seemed to sweeten the deal as I don't have to pay for a daycare now. I can save money. This woman had two children of her own but they were tragically killed in a car crash when they're car slipped on ice heading right into a tree. It was a sad story to hear but she was telling me the truth. A little superpower of my I pride myself on, being able to tell when someone is lying to me. For the most part it works, I have had some slips but don't get any ideas, kid. I've tried it all.

Plus, I've learned something new about you. You are too much like me for your own good. No matter who it is, anytime someone else holds you whether you're wide awake or fast asleep you'll scream your little head off until I hold you again or they put you down. It happens every single time except for when this woman, Sarah asked to hold you. I had been holding you in my arms all throughout the interview for the basement and for most of it you were sound asleep until the very end. Then she asked if she could hold you so I agreed a little reluctantly warning her that you might blow out her eardrums but you held silent. I took that as your seal of approval on moving in. So, I took the offer she made while holding you and we move in next month or December 1st in two days. My first home and your first home as well as our first home together.

Now, my job is as boring as it gets sometimes. I work at a local supermarket as a cashier. People drive me nuts. The people I work with aren't too bad but it's not a picnic there either. Now that I know my job backwards and forward it's not interesting and only holds my attention for ten seconds at the start of my shift. During the day I leave you with the woman in the booth who are kind enough to watch you while I work. If you scream or get too fussy they call me but you just sleep through most of the time. Thankfully, I won't have to worry about taking you with me anymore. Not that I mind, I just think everyone else does. The only relief I have is knowing when my day us over that you're the light at the end of the tunnel. I'll see you. Hopefully, I won't be doing this forever. But for right now it pays the bills and fills our stomachs and that's what's important.

Next, of course, is the one thing I don't have to pay for. My car. My wonderful always there when I need it yellow bug. You have no idea how many stories I could tell you about this car. It has a lot of history for me, and for you as well, I suppose. But I'm... just not ready to tell you that story yet, forgive me. Maybe one day, when you're older. However, right now I'll say someone left this car to in the impound lot for me in Arizona, it was already paid for so all I had to do was pick it up That's how we were able to get from Phoenix, Arizona to Boston, Massachusetts. I picked it up after I got you. It was covered over in a tarp, kept relatively clean so I packed us up and said the car was our start. It was ours. No payments. No one trying to take it away, it was just ours. I also said it wasn't much left behind from you father, the person who left it for me but it was something. I'd build something from this because I have somewhere to start.

So far, I think I'm doing okay. I have a job, we'll have a place to live, and we both have full stomachs. As far as I'm concerned those are some of the most important things, everything else is a luxury. Things could be worse, that's how I'm trying to look at it. Taking care of myself is something I have always done but taking care of someone else is hard and very new for me. But you haven't complained yet, so, so far so good.

Love, your mother,

Emma Swan

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