separating that letter from the others.
Sitting down at her desk under the light, she began to read. Her grandmother was right about the challenge she faced translating the older version of French to the modern tongue but as she did, Marie was astonished at what she saw.
These were love letters. Real love letters, written either by her Great Grandma Marie or by her lover named Daniel. They were letters of heated passion, youthful hope and intense love all horribly plagued by their fears of discovery.
They were some of the most tender of verses she had ever read.
They were beautiful.
In fact, the words were so lovely that it transported Marie to a place that made her forget her own pain and suffering and she began to read each letter one by one from beginning to end. It seemed to her as though no time had passed, but in reality, Marie had been studying their antiquated beauty for hours on end.
Finally she reached the second to the last letter in the sequence.
It was a letter from Daniel to her Grandma Marie in which he suddenly and without warning, declared his wish to discontinue his acquaintance with her. The words cut Marie very deeply and she ran to her door closing it tightly, turning up her music in an attempt to drown out her impending emotional collapse.
She burst into tears crying the hardest that she had up until that point at times sobbing uncontrollably. A tear from her face fell down upon the letter that lay open in her lap. The letters were frail already and this distracted her enough to have to presence of mind to take a Kleenex and dry the moisture from the letter.
It was then she saw them.
Up until then they went unnoticed, but the shape of her tear drop on the letter in her lap made the pattern surrounding it become clear.
The letter had the same dried impressions of tear drops on the page.
They were her Grandmothers tears frozen in time at the moment she too had her heart broken. A legacy to the pain of a young girl 150 years in the past.
Marie was awestruck.
The wisdom of a century now clicked the tumblers into place within her young mind and she felt so fortunate to see this amazing vision. She felt connected and alive. She now moved as someone entranced, touching the paper as if the tactile sensation could bring her closer to the young girl who’s name she shared.
After a while, she gently folded the letter and placed it back on the stack.
She knew that she still had one letter left in her hand. It was her Grandmother’s response to Daniel.
Her farewell words, to the living dead.
Marie’s heart raced in anticipation of the message written on the page, yet a part of her was somewhat afraid to read it. She was afraid it would be a frail plea to reconsider his decision to end their relationship, or maybe in harsh contrast it was a lengthy rant of hatred and pointless words fired upon a man in full armor.
Protected from her words being the first to draw the sword.
A curse for the cursed.
Marie took a deep breath and unfolded the letter. Her eyes were first drawn to the surprisingly brief and almost sparse words on the page. She was then drawn to the title line, so businesslike and stripped of any emotion. The letter read as follows;
Sir:
I acknowledge the receipt of your last letter, which now lies before me, and in which you convey the intimation, that the position which, for some time past we have regarded each other, must henceforth be abandoned.
Until the receipt of this letter, I had regarded you in the light of my future husband; you were, therefore, as you have reason to know, so completely the possessor of my affections, that I looked with indifference upon every other suitor. The remembrance of you never failed to give a fresh zest to the pleasures of life, and you were in my thoughts at the very moment in which I received your last letter.
But deem me not so devoid of proper pride as to wish you to revoke your determination, from which I will not attempt to dissuade you, whether you may have made it in lengthy deliberation, or in precipitate haste.
Sir, I shall endeavor to banish you from my affections, as readily and completely as you have banished me; and all that I shall now require from you is this, that you will return to me whatever letters you may have of mine, and which I may have written under a foolish confidence in your attachment.
Sir,
Yours, as once was,
Marie
As Marie finished reading the last impersonal close of the correspondence, she began to feel a smile curl on her face. The direct purpose and dignity in this masterpiece of writing, evoked Marie to speak silently to herself in admiration of the author.
“That’s perfect.” she said.
“So perfect.”
She knew at that moment the words that she herself wanted to say. They were the words of the person who had cried the same tears, suffered the same pain and possessed the same blood in her veins.
It was then that Marie composed her response to Phillip.
Other than modernizing the style of the writing slightly, she kept almost every word of her Grandmothers letter in tact with the exception of her request to return her letters.
There had never been any paper correspondence between she and Phillip. Marie did ask him to have enough respect for her to delete all of her text messages and correspondence he had archived.
She decided that she would honor her grandmother in one more way and keep a similar legacy of this moment in her life.
Her last letter to Phillip was mailed in writing directly to his dorm along with some of his belongings and keepsakes that she had no intention of ever touching again. She also kept a copy of the letter she’d sent carefully folded and placed along side the priceless stack of her Grandma Marie’s collection. She carefully tied them all together again with the green ribbon and returned them to her Grandmother with the most heartfelt thanks that she could ever give.
That night, Marie was able to sleep in complete peace and woke the following morning feeling much the same as she had before this ordeal took place. As she left her house that day to mail the letter, she made one stop in the living room before walking out the door.
She stopped to look upon the tintype photograph of her Grandma Marie that hung on the living room wall amidst countless faces from history. As she stared into the eyes of that stoic face that had always seemed so distant and removed from what was real, Marie saw something that she had never really noticed until then. With a smile that radiated from somewhere deep within her soul, she said the words.
“We both have the same eyes.”
***
Notes from the author: Thank you for taking to time to read “The Last Letter”. I hope that the people and experiences touched your emotions in some way. If you would like to read any of my other stories or poetry, please visit the website below.
https://www.timespirits.com
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[email protected] Time is the fire in which we feel safe and warm, or are burned alive. ~ Jeffrey Miska
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