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“For the last ten years of her life, that’s how we communicated. No talking, no texting, just letters. She would send us your work, and we would send her a letter saying we received it, begging her for more.”
Wiping a tear from his eye, he sighs. “The last thing she sent to us was a letter in her own words.” He pulls an envelope from his breast-pocket and hands it to me.
It’s unopened. “Why haven’t you opened it yet?”
“It came with a note to us. She mailed it the day before she died. She said to give it to you whenever we followed the instructions.”
“Instructions?”
Henry smiles and cries at the same time. “She said to give it to you whenever we thought you weren’t angry with her anymore.”
I run my fingers against the flap and shake my head. Besides her suicide letter, Leah never wrote anything and I’m not sure if my heart can handle any more of her words.
“Is that all you have to tell me?” My voice is cracking. “I need to finish cleaning up.”
“That’s not all.” Virginia walks over and puts her hand on my shoulder. “I know you’ve been wanting to get away from Blythe and leave us for a while now.”
I feel guilty as she begins to cry. “No. I just—”
“We get it. We completely understand, but we want to give you another option. We don’t want to let you go so soon.”
I look at both of them, seeing the sadness in their eyes.
“I’ll come back for the holidays and I’ll call every other weekend.”
Virginia presses her finger against my lips. “We want you to finish your college education.”
“What?”
“We’ll pay for it,” Henry says. “You’d be in state—University of Alabama, and we can more than afford that. You’d be close to home and you could always call us if you got stressed or wanted us to come visit.”
I shake my head because I can’t believe this. This is not what I was expecting. At all.
“What do you think?” Virginia is practically holding her breath in anticipation of an answer. “I think the big publishing houses in New York will always be there. You can always use a degree to fall back on, you know?”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch.” Henry smiles. “Well, there may be a couple...”
“Like?”
“You’ll have to join an AA group when you get there—for at least your first year, you’ll have to call us at least once a week, and you’ll have to send us everything you write.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Aren’t you worried that you’ll be wasting your money? That I’ll just flunk out again?”
“You won’t.” Virginia rubs my knuckles. “We know you won’t.”
“Can I think about this?”
“Of course.” She pulls me up and hugs me. “We believe in you, Emerald. We always have and we always will.”
As much as I try to prevent the tears from falling, they trickle down my cheeks anyway.
“Let us know whenever you decide, but the fall semester starts pretty soon.” Henry hugs me too, and for the longest time, the three of stand just like that.
––––––––
I carry two of Virginia’s cupcakes up to my room and flop onto my bed.
After we finally disentangled from our embrace, she made dinner and showed me how to make her most basic cupcake. Then she showed me how to make her butter biscuits, laughing when I burned the first batch, calling me “Leah’s daughter for sure.”
I pull Leah’s letter out of my pocket and stare at it.
She didn’t even bother to put my name on the envelope. It’s blank, the only adornment being a brown stain which I’m sure is a splatter of rum.
I’m tempted to rip it to shreds and flush it like her other letter so I can be content with the memories I have; I don’t need any new reasons to be upset because I feel somewhat at peace.
I toss it onto the floor, letting it lie there for a while, letting it taunt me, then I pick it up and rip it open:
Dear Em,
I’m writing this letter because I don’t have much time, because I’m not sure if I’m going to go through with my plans or not, but I want you to know that whatever happens to me, I love you. No matter what. I. Fucking. Love. You.
That said, hopefully you’re reading this letter years later per my wishes, but if not, I can understand the logic behind that decision...
I want you to know that I am and have ALWAYS been proud of you. You are so smart, so intelligent, so everything that I’m not.
