The letter

The Letter

 

                By the time I had meet my grandfather he had been sober for 10 years. A tree of a man, he stood 6 foot 4 inches and forever had the lingering smell the peppermint candies he chewed on. There was never a more agreeable man, he would gather me close and raise me above his head in one swift motion and I felt as though I was soaring. “Surely this is what a man was meant to me” by child’s mind reasoned “a mountain, a pillar and a super hero”. My own father was small and worked with his mind, his father was small and dead, I often without realizing it, compared my petite father with my larger than life grandfather, finding the former wanting and wishing and praying I would turn out like the latter. Only to make grandpa more appealing he lived in a boyhood dream ranch with cattle and horses, and in the summers I would try my hardest to leave my own city likeness behind and conform to his ways of life. I would tip my hat to my grandmother and leave my kicks and polo shirts for new cowboy boots and wranglers. I relished in working the land, and in late summer even would run off mind set of adventures and the calling of wide open lands. Regularly I was accompanied by a cousin or two as we would reenact the various cowboy/ Indian’s wars we saw from Grandpa old faded recliner. It was one such adventure, that I noticed the first time I had ever questioned the happiness of life and the façade my grandfather displayed for us to see.

                High up in a tree, nestled in the branched I peered out at the lit porch and backyard of my grandparents’ house. My cousin and I were playing hide and go seek, with bows and arrows. Proud of my success and joyful to be hidden so long I hugged the thick branch for support, when I heard the door open from the house, I all but had winner winner chicken dinner on my lips, but was not greeted my golden haired cousins, but by my grandmother. Her lips perched, body ridged and face flushed, I had never seen her so. She had a serve case of the look she wore when I would get underfoot, she stopped short of the porch railing and stared blankly at the dimming sky as if looking for something not yet there. Shortly after she cupped her face in her hands and rocked slowly. I knew better than to venture down from my tree, my safe spot, I somehow understood even at 7 that this was an event I was not invited to attend. I prayed that my grandfather would arrive and rescue my grandmother, like the hero he was. As the swinging door echoed I know my prayer were answered. Out came the mountain man, stooping to clear the door, he raised himself and stopped just inches from her. I had never noticed the height difference between them, he drawfted my grandmother, pulling her toward him as if to hug her but stopping short of intimacy he forced her hand free from her wet face and spoke harshly.

                “Damn it Kay, you fool of a woman, what did you think would happen” His words were intense and eyes beat in to her, I found that I was holding my breath and released it in short quiet bursts as if not the be heard.

                My grandmother, who I had never heard an ill word from spit in my grandfather face, and for that received a sharp slap. To which her naturally warm and gentle eyes frosted over “You still love her, after all this time, after all this? Who is the fool, you think she would want an old man, an old abusive drunk like you?” her words hit their mark because grandpa staggered back under the weight of her statements.

My Grandmother now free from his grasp rubbed her cheek with one hand and produced a folded up paper with the other, she waved it in his face. “did you not think I would find this, did you not think I would see.” She opened it slowly and spoke low, the contents he couldn’t hear, but what he did see was the tears that welled up in grandfather’s eyes and the pain that flashed in grandma’s face. My 7 year old mind swam with plots and reasons for them to behave so irrationally, to unlike the grand parents that I knew and loved.

                Grandfather turned his back and finally said “Mea, it was unfortunate you found that, but don’t act as though this is news, You know how I feel about Sharon, you know who I was when you said yes. “With those words rattling out in the open my grandfather walked back thought the door, no stooping necessary as he left my grandmother frozen outside. There she sat for a long time, the stars came out and night grew chilly before she wrapped her arms around herself and walked back in to her life, leaving me cold and lost outside.

                The next morning, as if a spell was cast, my Grandmother as she did every morning meet me with a cheerful smile and plate of eggs, bacon and potatoes. She tussled my hair and told me to eat up so I could grow big and strong like my grandfather. This earned a smile and wink from my grandpa at the end of the table and my grandmother kissed his cheek. Confused but wise for my age I kept my revelations to myself and never again did I see anything like that display again from them. The letter my grandmother read from so quietly was never found on my many searches and I feared or hoped it was burnt.

                I was sixteen when my grandfather passed, I had long reached the age where hero were no longer old cowboys, but long haired rock playboys and football stars. The summers from my youth were a memory I was too young to appreciate, and my grandparents were Christmas relatives and people that sent the 20 bill in a birthday card. I attended the funeral with my sobbing mother, and stoic father. Dressed in a black suit and tie I watched as my grandfather body was lowered in to a grave and saw that familiar look of pain on my grandmother’s face. I listened as my uncle eulogize him, how he was a pillar, a faithful man, how he loved one woman, I cheated a look at grandmother, and caught her eyes, tear brimmed and filled with emotion I turned away. I felt as though I knew a secret, a chapter everyone else had skipped, only I and she knew the real story. I replayed that summer night in my mind and found myself wishing I had the nerve to stand and shout.

                Shortly after my grandmother became fragile, she had gone from a healthy and thriving 68 year old to an old woman over night, after many flights and calls my parent thought it best to have her live with us. Grandmother lived right next door to me, if I listened hard enough I heard her little music box paying as time goes by. I resented having her so close, she brought up the time my small little world was rocked, the magic died and reality was born. No one pushed too hard from quality time, after what could a 17 year old boy learn from a 68 year old woman. She lived in the house for 5 years, I was a senior in college when I received the news that she had passed, my mother told me she was happy in those last years, she told me that she was with her great love. I smiled and pretended to agree all the while, I replayed a slap that haunted my relationships. I arrived home for the funeral, and listened to my mother’s beautiful flowery words, hollow and unnerving I had the same feeling of betrayal and sadness. The matching tombstones, and fresh mound of dirt were too much and I headed to my childhood home. I needed to know. Like a burr in the back of my mind the letter had become the heartbeat in the floor board in my own story. I need to know. Leaving my mother and father behind to thank the attendees I tore through my grandmother room, only to find nothing. Maybe she had burnt it, maybe he threw it away, long ago. I tried to resume my life. I week later my mother stopped by my little apartment, carrying with her a small package. She sat in silence over tea, and she set the parcel on the table in found of me. This is what your grandmother left you, I don’t know why, but she insisted you would need it, and she made me promised to give it to you. With that she left.

                Slowly peeling back the brown paper I found an old wooden box. Opening it I found just one letter, faded and well-worn from reading, my heart stopped as I came face to face with my fears. I opened the letter slowly, the letter that had caused me so much confusion, so much pain, the letter that caused my breakdown of my belief in love. I begin in a hushed whisper.

 

                Beloved,

Yes I did receive you letters. Yes I have received the flowers. I thank you for them with all my heart. I too think of yesteryears and long for simple times. My love for you will always be, but Harry, my answer is as it was 35 years ago, I cannot or will I come between you are your family. Mae is your wife, Charles and Samantha are your children, to leave them for some silly notion of what might have been is a fools dream. I am married, have been for a good number of years. Harry, please stop your attempts to reach me, I have informed the post man to return all letter from this address. What once was, will never be, what once we dreamt of a life vanished the day you became a father. Please know that I too wish things hadn’t happened as they did, I wish us …. Harry wishing never solved anything. Your family needs you, Mae needs you. I do not.

-          Sharon

I reread the letter, letting the words soak in, letting them rearrange my past and rewrite it. I was again in a pair of jeans and faded cowboy shirt, I was in a tree, I was waiting to be found. I was staring at my work crumble and not understanding why. The letter crumping in my clenched fist, only to be smoothed out again and reread. My Grandmother had known, she must have seen me in that tree, but why never bring it up? Why never explain herself? Why hadn’t I? I suppose to me completely truthful with myself it was easier to deny it, to suppress it and forget. To think my grandfather a noble and kind man. Maybe she was trying to protect me, or hoping I would never tell. She loved the thought of my saintly grandfather more than the reality of a man who loved another and settled for her and family. A man that tried to leave, and was turned down.

                She chose to live the lie of a happy marriage and love, instead of the truth. My grandfather married her because she was pregnant and regretted it. That was too hard for her to handle so she put up with the drinking, she put up with the abuse, where we saw a hero and role model she saw what … a  lover? A unfaithful husband? A storybook ending gone to hell?

                I folded the letter and placed in back in the box, I closed it and without realizing it, made peace as I could never when I was younger. Heroes in another lighting are villains, strong people fall, and love, even the most pure and honorable is sometimes not enough. I knew two men, the kind, funny sweet man that would lift me up and fly me around, and the dark and dangerous man that was childish and unfaithful. My Grandmother was a powerful and strong woman, yet the woman I saw that night was weak and hateful. This people, now dead left me with the lesson that all is not as it seems and people are not as simple to read.

                I went to the graveyard late one night and breaking in to the soft ground between their resting bodies I lowered the box and said some final words.

                “I don’t understand, Maybe I never well, but I can appreciate that your lives were not easy. Ill burry that night with me too. Goodbye”

I turned and walked away. 

Author's Note

let me know what you think

Reviews

[dan]

Crystal, I'm sorry but due to a MH disorder I am unable to maintain focus and/or concentration for long writes. It's nearly impossible for me to do a cogent review of something of this length. I'm very sorry. dan

[Crystal Overmeyer-Birmingham]

problem, wont lie i get lost in a long story and poems. Thank you