THE FORGOTTEN LETTER: A Short Story

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Summers are always busy for me, and writing often takes a back seat. But every now and then, a memory or feeling surfaces, and I find myself racing to the keyboard. This story is purely fictional, though inspired by memories of my mother.

I lingered in the entryway, clutching the ring of keys. The house was empty and silent, its walls with the peeling wallpaper, barren and cold. It didn’t even smell like my mother’s house anymore—just of dampness and mildew, and a faint trace of wood smoke. No lingering scent of Mom’s favorite chamomile tea or the freshly picked lemons from her orchard. Everything had faded in time, following her into the unknown.

I’d told myself this was just a task—empty the rooms, sell the place, leave the past behind, etched into the bones of this big empty house.

As if it were that simple.

Releasing a long breath, I closed the door behind me and walked down the hallway and into the living room, my steps on the worn terracotta tiles echoing off the walls. In the eighteen years since my mother’s Alzheimer’s had worsened, requiring care in a specialized facility, I’d come here only a handful of times to air out the house and check for water leaks. We had grown up in this house, my brother and I, but after we moved my mother to the facility, it no longer felt like home. It wasn’t the same without her endless chatter and the clatter of pots and pans as she baked her signature cakes and cookies, or without the familiar whir of the sewing machine running in the spare room. Selling the house never felt right while my mother was still alive. Life had already taken so much from her; it didn’t seem fair to deprive her of the home where she’d spent forty years of happy marriage, the place where every wall and floorboard still echoed with memories.

I dropped my bags to the floor and arched my back. Every inch of me ached, from neck to toes. Three grueling days of funeral arrangements and legal errands had taken their toll. I would have welcomed a few hours of sleep, but I couldn’t afford to linger. I was due back in Boston in three days. That didn’t leave much time to sift through drawers and closets and sort out what to keep before the clean-out service came to haul everything away.

After changing into jeans and an old flannel shirt of my mother’s, I rolled up the sleeves and surveyed the place. There wasn’t much left to sort. Most of her clothing and linens were already packed in boxes, ready for Goodwill. Same with the china from the cabinet, some of it never even used. My mother had always been frugal and never threw anything out unless it had stopped serving its purpose.

The drawers were filled with odds and ends—old store receipts, pharmacy scripts, and recipes scribbled on random scraps of paper, mixed in with unmarked keys, expired batteries, and an assortment of sewing supplies. Buttons, scissors, tape measures, spools of thread in every imaginable color, everywhere I looked.

In the bedroom, I rifled through the vanity drawers, finding only a few pieces of costume jewelry, some old greeting cards, and photos. I set aside the photos to look through later, then gathered the cards into a bundle. One of the envelopes slipped from my hands and fluttered to the floor. I stooped to pick it up—and froze.

I knew that handwriting.

My heart pounded out of my chest as I lifted the envelope off the floor and held it in my trembling fingers. It was unopened. There was no stamp or postmark, just my name scrawled in the too-familiar bold script across the front. It must have been hand-delivered to the house or dropped into the mailbox.

I stared at it, not sure I wanted to know what was inside. It had been twenty-nine years. I’d moved on. So had he, I was sure. What could he have possibly wanted to tell me after walking away from me?

I contemplated tearing it up, pretend I hadn’t found it. But I was only deluding myself. It had been my MO for decades. Pretend it hadn’t broken me, pretend the two of us were never meant to be. It was time I faced the truth. I had never gotten over Mark. Not after I’d married kind, dependable, steady Rob. Not after the birth of my first child, when I thought my world was finally complete. Not when Rob lay dying, his fevered eyes locked on mine in a silent goodbye.

Mark had always been there, lurking in the inner folds of my memory. A ‘what if’ I could never quite silence. A measuring stick against which all that was real and tangible in my life was unfairly compared.

Sliding my fingernail under a loose corner of the envelope, I slit it open and drew out the folded note. The date at the top stopped me cold: May 12, 1996. The day after I had last seen him.

My knees wobbled weakly, and I sank onto the bare mattress. My memory did a rapid rewind, catapulting me back to a time I’d thought buried forever, and a vortex of emotions tore through me, hurling me into a tailspin.

We’d had a terrible fight. I told him that if he really loved me, he wouldn’t ask me to give up my dream of spending a year in Paris to study art. He’d been offered a prestigious job in Seattle with an important law firm and expected me to follow.

He’d called and left voice messages later that day, but I was deeply hurt and didn’t pick up.

A week later, when I finally found the courage to call, he didn’t answer. I found out later he’d already left for Seattle. No warning. No goodbye.

How had the letter ended in the vanity? Why had I never seen it?

And then I remembered. It was around that time that my mother had begun to show signs of forgetfulness—leaving the refrigerator door open, putting things in the wrong places, then forgetting where she’d put them. She must have picked up the mail that day and then forgotten all about it. 

I drew in a breath as my heartbeat settled into a brisk but steady rhythm.

My love,

I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking I might have ruined everything. The thought of never seeing you again is more than I can bear, and it puts everything in perspective. It was unfair of me to ask you to put your dream on hold and move with me to Seattle. You’ve been planning this ever since I can remember, and you deserve it.

So I’ve come to a decision. Just say the word and I’ll decline the job offer and come to Paris with you. I’m sure I can find a temporary job to tide us over, so you won’t have to work. It will be tough at first, but we can make it work. It will work. Seattle is my dream job, but building a life with you means more than any career. I can’t imagine my life without you, sweetheart, and no sacrifice is too big if it means us being together.

I can’t wait to begin our new adventure.

Waiting with bated breath,

—Mark

I didn’t know how much time had passed before my mind snapped back to the present. Someone was at the door.

The bell rang again. I thought about ignoring it, but maybe it was the clean-out service, arriving early. I swiped at my eyes with the sleeve of my mom’s shirt, drying the tears I hadn’t realized were falling, and headed to the door.

A well-dressed man stood beneath the portico, a bouquet of fresh flowers in his hands.

“I’m sorry—I saw the lights on. I heard Mrs. Foster had passed away and wanted to pay my respects . . .” He trailed off as I stepped out of the shadows. “Mia?”

His blue eyes were the same, though the web of lines around them betrayed the passage of time. He was taller than I remembered, broader too, around the shoulders. But in all the ways that mattered, he was still Mark.

My chest exploded in a flutter of a million butterflies, as if I were still that long-ago nineteen-year-old girl, heads over heels in love with the man of her dreams.

“Yes,” I said. It came out a whisper, not much more than a thready breath pushing through the clamp around my throat.

Emotion flashed across his face. His lips parted in wonder. “How—when . . .?”

I held up the envelope, unable to stem the fresh flow of tears that spilled onto my cheeks.

“I would have said yes, you know. And you were right. No sacrifice is too big if it means being together.”