About This Ledger

You were not supposed to find this. I kept it anyway. That is the whole explanation. These are not letters. I was not writing to anyone. I was writing to get the weight out of my chest and onto a page where it could sit still and stop pressing. If you are reading this, something has carried it further than I intended.it herself, present tense, directly to whoever is reading.

I keep numbers for a living. I know what things cost. I know what things weigh. This ledger is where I put what the columns cannot hold — the remainder, the figure that won’t resolve, the thing left over after the official accounting is done.

Read it if you need to. Some of it may be familiar.

I am Lena Larkspur. I live above a music shop on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. I got here because a woman on the radio laughed in the middle of her own song and my chest said there.

That is more than I usually say about myself.

The ledger will say the rest.