If It Rains

by Jennifer L. Wright

I could only hope Kathryn would understand. Maybe she had grown up during these past few months and forgotten childish things like Oz. Or maybe, like me, she had clung to them as a last thread of home in a world that was meaner and scarier than either of us could ever have imagined. I had no way of knowing. But when she came back—if she came back—this book would be here for her. It was a risk. But I couldn’t leave the book with Henry; he would burn it the moment he discovered my escape. And it would be months before I could write to Kathryn, if ever. I had no way of knowing how long Henry would keep up the search. Maybe the book would give her hope, as it had done for me. That I was still out there. And that somehow, someway, just as Dorothy had traveled through Oz, never ceasing in her quest to return home, I would not give up until I found my way back to her.

In the original draft, Melissa outlines a section of the text describing the lush green landscape of Oz in hopes Kathryn would understand it as a veiled reference to California (which was being described in the same way in all the resettlement brochures).