A word written in coat linings, marquee letters, and childhood maps—a place that may not exist on any atlas but keeps appearing anyway.

Nadine Van Orman wrote it near the left cuff of her brown wool coat, after

Yarmouth, Trieste, Ely, and a dozen other names. When she was six, she invented

a city called Ferris on butcher paper—a city with seven bridges and a rule that

nobody had to say goodbye in a hurry. Elsewhere is what remains when a destination

outlives the map you drew before you knew places could take people away.