Exactly a month ago, I received an electronic-mail message from my No. 2 son in which he asked me to send him a copy of my new book. Thus he sent me his postal address in New York City. I sent him the book the same day. I was in Zagreb at the time, but I put my address in Motovun on the cushy envelope as the return address. When I returned to the hilltown a few days ago, I found the envelope with the book in my mailbox. There was a sticker covering my son’s address. “Insufficient address,” it declared. I sent him an electronic-mail message at once and asked him for his full address. He failed to respond for a couple of days, and so I wrote to him again. Yesterday evening I got his response by electronic mail. The address he sent me previously was the same, but he added his apartment number. Of all numbers, it was No. 1. This morning I sent him the book for the second time. For good measure, I put the old cushy envelope with the book into a new but larger cushy envelope. This way, my son will appreciate the book’s trek so much better. It will have crossed the Atlantic no less than three times. Come to think of it, I hope I will see it in my mailbox never again. Fingers crossed.

Addendum (November 20, 2018)

Amazingly enough, I have never heard from my No. 2 son about the book’s fate. Nor about anything else, for that matter. I sent him a whole bunch of electronic-mail messages in the following months, but to no avail. After quite a few unsuccessful attempts to get in touch with him, I wrote an open letter addressed to him and posted it on my Residua website (“Up to You: An Open Letter to My No. 2 Son,” July 3, 2015). The mystery does not end here, though. I learned from my daughter when she visited me last year that her brother had been incommunicado for at least a year already. Neither her nor their mother could get a word from him after untold attempts to connect. When she visited me this year, my daughter had nothing new to add in this connection. For some reason no-one in the family understands, he has cut us all out. I can only hope that this sad story will have a happy end. Fingers crossed once again.