He didn’t forget about me. These were mailed over a week ago. Paul has been thinking about me, too!
Sierra’s heart was fluttering like a butterfly caught in a net. She couldn’t stop smiling. No one was around to see her carefully lift the two letters and steal away to her favorite chair in the study.
Just like in the poem, Sierra closed the study’s door and locked it. She pulled her chair over to where the late afternoon sun spilled through the French doors. There, in a spotlight of autumn glory, she sat down and held both letters, one in each hand.
Which one do I open first? Maybe Paul put the date on them on the inside.
Sliding her thumbnail under the flap, Sierra opened one of the letters and drew out the single, folded page of white onionskin paper. It crinkled when she lifted the two folds, revealing the familiar bold letters that came from Paul’s hand. The date at the top was September 7.
Sierra didn’t know if she could bear to open the next letter and leave this one unread. But it would make more sense to read them in order. She opened the second one more hurriedly. That three-page letter bore the date of September 10.
Pursing her lips together, Sierra went back to the first letter and read each word slowly.
Dear Sierra,
I haven’t heard back from you, and I realize you may never write. As I said in my last letter, I would understand if you don’t want to start up a correspondence.
Sierra looked up and spoke to the swirling stream of dust specks riding on the afternoon shaft of light. “He didn’t get my letters!”
She read on.
There is one more thing I wanted to say to you, and then I’ll let you be. Months ago on the airplane you said something that has stuck with me. I wanted you to know. You asked how I felt now that my grandfather was gone. Do you know, you’re the only one who ever asked me that? So many people tried to tell me how I should feel. They still do that here. They say, “Oh, you’ll get on fine,” or “You should feel proud to have been kin to such a man.”
Sierra, only you asked how I felt. I wanted to thank you for that. It’s given me some freedom to feel all the things I need to.
May the peace of Christ be upon you.
Paul
Sierra folded up the letter. She eagerly began to read the next letter.
Ah, dear Daffodil Queen,
Pulling the paper close, Sierra looked to the ceiling and bit her lower lip to stifle a giggle.
“Ah, dear Daffodil Queen,” she repeated aloud. Paul had once seen her walking down the street in the rain with an armful of daffodils and had teased her about it. This time his title sounded sweet to her ears.
I have read and reread your two wonderful letters at least half a dozen times, and they still make me smile. You have such a way with words. I could actually see some of the stories as you told them to me: your father taking you to the restaurant where your friends all worked and presenting you with the purity ring; Doug being chained to the Balboa Island ferry; and your surprise trip to Switzerland.
I laughed aloud when I read about how you and your friend knocked over the card rack inside that proper little shop in Basel. I know exactly what that’s like. There’s a tea shop my grandmother goes to every Wednesday and Saturday to meet her friends. She took me along my first week here, intending, I’m sure, to show me off to the dear women of the town so they could see if I was a suitable match for their granddaughters. We sat at a very small table by the window. As soon as the tea and biscuits were served, I accidentally kicked the leg of the decrepit table and brought the whole spread, china teapot and all, crashing to the floor.
Sierra tilted her head back and laughed. She could just see the little tea shop, since she had been in one in Ireland. She knew how serious the little ladies were about having a proper, quiet teatime.
Poor Paul. How embarrassing!
I began classes at the university several weeks ago, and now my life consists of books, books, and more books. Perhaps that’s another reason I enjoyed your refreshing letters so much.
How was your first week of school? You said that you were having a misunderstanding with your friend Amy. I’ve wondered how that all turned out.
Last year I had a lot of friends at school, and I always had someone I could do something with. Here, I have very few friends. I don’t know if it’s me or them. Last year I didn’t have many friends who were what you would call a good influence on me. I haven’t found anyone here who holds to the values I now embrace. So I spend a lot of time by myself rather than at the pubs with the others. It’s actually been good for me. My grades are all high so far. I spend the weekends at my grandmother’s, working around the place.
Have I told you about my grandmother’s home? It’s a cottage, really. The original foundation was laid something like 200 years ago. It’s been renovated a dozen times. The most recent improvements were made about four years ago. My grandmother has a microwave and a new central, wood-burning stove for heat, but she’ll never have a dishwasher or trash compactor. There are two acres of hilly, rocky land that have been in the family for generations. They used to keep sheep on the land, but now all Grandma keeps is a collie named Laddie and a small garden, which did poorly this summer because of the unusual heat.
I’m writing this on the train to Grandma’s. My stop is the next one, so I’ll bring this to a close. I’m already looking forward to your next letter. Perhaps there will be one waiting for me at the cottage. Please tell me everything that has been happening in Portland. Have the autumn rains begun yet? Or are you enjoying those brilliant blue skies and warm sunshine as the leaves begin their transformation? We’ve had very little rain here, but everyone is ready for the wet to return.
I send this with my prayers for you, Sierra. May the peace of Christ be upon you.
Paul
Sierra let the pages drift to her lap as the rhythm of her pulse slowed. The sunlight waltzed through the French doors warming her arms the way Paul’s letter had just warmed her heart. She didn’t want to move from this chair. She didn’t want to lose this feeling. Ever.
eight
FOR THE TENTH TIME in the last few days, Sierra “picked the lock” on her wonderful letters from Paul as she sat in the quietness of her room to read them again. After she read them, she prayed for Paul as she had done many times. She prayed that God would make his path straight and that his heart would be responsive to all the things God was teaching him. It gave her comfort to know that even though they were so far away from each other in miles, they could be close in spirit. Paul was praying for her. He had said so.
Sierra had written Paul back right away Monday night after she had read his letters. It took her three hours to carefully craft her reply. She had given him her e-mail address and suggested they correspond by e-mail since it would be much quicker. Stopping at the post office Tuesday after school, she sent the long letter off by air mail. It would be hard to wait for his answer. If they could correspond through e-mail, they could chat on-line and answer each other the same day.
Now it was Wednesday evening, and Sierra had just returned from the youth group Bible study at church. She went up to her room, where she shut the door and read her letters in private. There was something decisive and serious about Paul’s handwriting. Each character was etched bold and black on the onionskin paper. Sierra noticed the way he crossed his t’s with an upward stroke. This gave the whole page a feeling of optimism. The letters seemed to reflect Paul’s personality as Sierra was beginning to know him: thoughtful yet hopeful.
“Sierra?” Her mom called out from behind Sierra’s closed door. “Are you busy?”
“No. Come in.”
Mrs. Jensen entered and sat on the edge of Tawni’s bed. The top half of the bed was covered with a mound of unfolded clean clothes that Sierra had brought up from the laundry on Monday.
“I just talked to Tawni,” her mother said.
Sierra nodded, waiting for her to go on. Before her mom came in, Sierra had folde
d Paul’s letter and slipped it under her pillow, where she had kept his letters since the day she had received them.
“Tawni has decided to write a letter to her birth mother and wait for a reply. She wanted me to tell you what she finally decided.”
Sierra nodded again. She was trying to read her mom’s expression to see how she felt about all this. She appeared calm.
“How do you feel about all this?” Sierra asked. She felt a little strange, talking to her mom as an equal, asking about her feelings.
“I’ll be honest: It disturbed me at first. There’s so much that could happen or be said that could never be erased. Tawni has always been sensitive in certain areas. I was worried this would cut her deeply and leave quite a scar.”
“It is kind of like venturing into the unknown,” Sierra said.
“The more I’ve talked about it with your father and with Tawni, the more I think she’s doing the right thing. This is a good step for her to take. I think the letter is a good idea.”
“I do, too,” Sierra agreed, leaning her elbow on her pillow and thinking of the hidden treasure under it. “Letters can really communicate a lot, can’t they? I mean, you can go back and read a letter over and over and take your time to respond.”
“You’re right,” her mom said. “I hope Tawni is prepared to never hear back, if that’s what happens.” She reached over and patted Sierra’s leg. “The hardest thing for me is to realize you two are both old enough to make these kinds of life-affecting decisions.”
“I think Tawni and I are both realizing that relationships can be complicated and there aren’t always easy answers.”
“That reminds me,” Mrs. Jensen said. “Whatever happened with Amy?”
Sierra shook her head. “I don’t think we’re ever going to talk.” She related what had happened at school on Monday and how Amy had made it clear she didn’t want to discuss anything with Sierra. “It makes me feel awful,” Sierra said. “Have you ever lost a friend like this?”
Her mom thought a minute. “Yes.” She hesitated. “It’s happened to me several times over the years. People change. Friendships change. I chose to take a different direction with a friendship when we moved here to Portland. I guess I was the Amy in that relationship. I simply didn’t have the time or energy to keep in touch with this friend at the level she wanted. My life here is so different and in some ways more demanding than it was before. I’m afraid I hurt her feelings.”
Sierra wondered if that was what was going on with Amy. Now that Amy was wrapped up in her relationship with Nathan, she didn’t have the time or energy to keep a friendship going with Sierra.
After Sierra went to bed that night, she thought about Amy and the loss of their friendship. It wasn’t even so much that Amy had a boyfriend. It was the way their friendship had ended. Sierra realized now, quite clearly, that she had a different set of values and goals for her own dating life. She had formulated what she called a creed, which outlined her standards in writing. She had assumed that Amy had the same set of values and that she would only go out with a strong Christian and would be deliberate about staying morally and physically pure. That didn’t appear to be Amy’s goal.
Before Sierra fell asleep, she wondered if she should write a letter to Amy. Her letters from Paul had meant so much to her. Tawni had decided to write a letter to her birth mother. Perhaps a letter would accomplish what Sierra wanted in making peace with Amy, even if they didn’t remain good friends. Sierra knew it would have to be carefully written. As she lay in the silence of her dark bedroom, Sierra lined the words up in her mind, arranging and rearranging them like vowels and consonants in a game of Scrabble.
When she woke on Thursday morning, Sierra realized she had dreamed about her letter. In her dream she had handed the carefully written sheets to Amy in the school cafeteria, only to watch Amy drop them into the trash can, unread. As unsettling as the dream had been, Sierra still felt her idea was a good one. If only she could figure out what to say and the right way to say it.
There was no time to act on her idea that day because she worked after school and then helped serve dinner to the homeless who lined up at the Highland House. She didn’t get home until after eight, and the first thing she did was go into the study and turn on her dad’s computer. She checked the e-mail, just in case Paul had received her letter already and had written her back by e-mail. No messages waited for her.
Sierra opened a writing program and started to draft her letter to Amy: “Dear Amy, I want to tell you how sad I am that our friendship has gone on hold.”
No, that didn’t sound right. Deleting the line, she tried again.
Sierra kept reworking the letter, trying to express what she wanted to say without its sounding too strong. It was a lot harder than she had thought it would be. Her parents came into the study to say good night before they went to bed.
“A girl named Vicki called while you were at work,” her mom said. “I left the note with her phone number upstairs on your bed.”
“Thanks.”
Her dad glanced at the computer screen. “Finishing up your homework?”
“I’m about to. I was just working on something else.”
“Well, be sure to turn everything off when you go to bed.” He patted her shoulder and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head.
“I will,” Sierra said.
She felt self-conscious about her words on the computer screen. They appeared so final there. Is that how they would seem to Amy? What if she tried her best to choose all the words so they sounded right to her, but somehow they didn’t sound the same way to Amy?
Saving her efforts in a file marked “Amy,” Sierra put away the letter and unzipped her backpack. The first book she pulled out was Emily Dickinson’s poems.
“Oh, no!” Sierra groaned. She had forgotten about the writing assignment due the next day. With a glance at the clock, Sierra shook her head.
I can’t believe I’m doing exactly what Mrs. Chambers said not to. I waited until ten o’clock on Thursday night.
Since schoolwork came easily for Sierra, over the years she had managed to get good grades with minimum effort. But now that she was beginning her senior year, it was important to her that she get straight As. This last-minute effort with the poetry evaluation was not the way to start off in English.
When Sierra turned her paper in the next day, she asked if she could do an additional report for extra credit.
Mrs. Chambers gave her a wistful look. “No, sorry. Next assignment maybe.”
Sierra made a mental note: No mercy from this teacher. Don’t put off any assignments in this class.
After class Sierra was returning the book to the library at the back of the room when Vicki came up beside her. Vicki waited until Sierra looked at her.
“Hi,” Vicki said.
“Hi,” Sierra echoed.
“I called yesterday when you were at work. I was wondering if you wanted to do something tonight.”
Sierra looked Vicki in the eye. She wanted to say “Why?” but she managed to refrain and offered a smile instead.
“I thought maybe we could get something to eat or go to the movies. I didn’t know if you were already doing something tonight.”
“No.”
Vicki smiled. “So what do you want to do?”
“Well …” Sierra shrugged. Then she heard herself say, “Why don’t you come over to my house?”
nine
“WHO’S COMING OVER?” Mrs. Jensen asked that evening.
Sierra was sitting on the floor in the family room going through the file drawer of all the DVDs.
“Vicki Navarone,” Sierra said without looking up. “She goes to Royal Academy. Do you remember my saying anything about her before? She helped out at Highland House with Randy and me last spring.”
“I remember your talking about Vicki, but I don’t remember your saying you were friends.”
Sierra looked up. “I didn’t think we were.” She t
urned her attention back to the DVDs. “I thought Tawni had all these in alphabetical order.”
“She did when she lived here. I’m afraid no one has kept up the system.”
The doorbell rang, and Sierra hopped up to answer it.
“That’s Vicki. Are you sure it’s okay if we watch a movie in here? The boys won’t be crashing in on us, will they?”
“Gavin is over at Jason’s, and I’ll make sure Dillon stays upstairs. Have a good time.”
Sierra felt apprehensive as she opened the front door. She never would have guessed that Vicki would have any of her Friday nights free, let alone want to spend one of them with Sierra.
“Hi. Come on in,” Sierra said. “I was just going through our stack of DVDs to see if anything looked interesting.”
“Sounds great! I love your house. That swing is so cute.” Vicki had on a pair of shorts and a gray sweatshirt that said “Georgetown.” Her silky, long hair was twisted up in a clip, and she didn’t appear to have on any makeup.
“It’s my grandma’s house,” Sierra said as Vicki entered and appreciatively glanced at the lighting fixture and wood trim in the entryway. “She lives with us, or rather, we live with her. Sometimes she gets kind of confused, so don’t be surprised if she comes in and starts doing or saying things that don’t make sense.”
Vicki nodded.
They went into the family room, and Sierra returned to the movie options, where she read off some of the titles.
“That sounds good,” Vicki said as Sierra read. “I like that one. Oh, that’s a great movie! I cried the first time I saw it.”
Suddenly Sierra stopped. This was all too unexplainable to her. Even though she knew she should think before she spoke, she didn’t.