The 1001 love letters Dad wrote Mom

They’re called that, although no one has counted them – 1001 meaning, just, fabulously many. Mom kept them in a suitcase under the bed. Family legend states that, when he was away from home, Dad wrote a page every day. The letters are genial, tending toward anecdote and travelog.

Writing from the Vietnam War, Dad

        •  calls insects “critters” and warns, “these brutes would laugh at Raid”

        •  includes a line drawing of his potted orchid mascot “Bud”

        •  tells “The Sorry Tale of Private Pinching and the Shrinking Trousers”

        •  loves her on every page; more than ever, like a madman, too damn much

        •  never hints at any warfare

Therefore the post-Vietnam letters are near-identical. His friends still have military ranks. He carefully avoids place names. Since the envelopes have been discarded, there are no telltale postmarks. It’s “hotter than heck” and he doesn’t know the “lingo.” That rules out Scotland.

The letters are, on average, four pages long. They have dates, but they’ve gotten out of sequence under Mom’s curation. Many pages are embossed with her signature maroon rings, where a tumbler of wine once rested. Some are torn in half and mended sloppily with Scotch tape.

The exemplars in Ralph’s belongings are mainly unfinished, unsigned. They have not been folded to fit in an envelope. It seems fair to presume they are rejected “manuscript” letters Dad never sent.

They are among a bundle of letters and postcards which, on inspection, prove to belong to Denise Cadwallader. The first evidence of which Eddie registered by blurting,

“OH MY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

and holding up a glossy photograph.

“What? What?” I squalled feebly back.

“NO. Just a second!” He was shaking his head at the picture as if actually telling it no. He turned it over and I saw:

A gawky thirteen-year-old girl in pink dungarees, hugging my father aggressively around the waist. They are in that seedy Chinatown, she is that hound-nosed Denise, beaming with wild love.

“Listen,” Eddie said, suddenly hoarse. “This is on the back.” He handed me the snapshot, reciting unsteadily: “Me with Corporal Channing’s daughter. Ate sea cucumber here. Plenty ketchup!”

I stared at the photo for a minute although I already knew what it looked like and I didn’t want to. I read the back. And winced: it was written in the same faded pencil in which Eddie’s photos were signed LOVE, DC.

“Funny,” I said.

“Okay,” said Eddie. “Okay. Don’t panic. Right?”

“Well,” I half-wailed. “Well, maybe it is Corporal Channing’s daughter? And that’s why, you know – she looked different when you knew her?”

“NO! Fuck off! That is fucking Denise! Ralph identified her! Ralph identified her!”

“Well, I didn’t do it!”

Eddie leapt to his feet, almost slipping on a blazer, and shouted for all the world to hear,

“LYING PRICK! LYING FUCKING PRICK!”

I shouted, “Calm down! WHY are you so angry? Calm down!”

Eddie goggled at me, breathing hard. He rasped: “Don’t you see what this – I mean, the bastard was fucking her. Gotta be.”

“That’s stupid.”

“No. Don’t tell me. Cause it’s that kind of lie. I mean . . . that picture? That shit? That’s what I do. That’s exactly the kind of shit that I do, send the fucking picture of my new chick, and say . . .”

“That’s stupid. Really.”

“Yeah. He wrote that to Mom, okay? Just, shut up and don’t talk to me. I’m going to sit down and fucking deal with my head.”

He didn’t sit down. When I tried to catch his eye, he waved my gaze away with an actual fly-swatting gesture. Forlorn, I lay down amid the interwoven junk.

I wanted to tell him that Dad didn’t matter. Mom didn’t matter: Eddie was the one I loved. They were just parents, they were bad, dead parents. Eddie was my comrade, who’d been through hell with me and back. We’d been captives together, of the harrowing Mother, who raved and dashed her glass to the floor, and drove off crowing I should jump off a cliff, and the Father popped up fleetingly, saying, “Kids, for Mom’s sake, you have to be brave.”

I loved you best, I wanted to tell him. I always always loved you best.

Eddie sat down. Kicking for purchase in the slippery mess, he maneuvered himself against the wall and slumped. He groped to find the whiskey bottle, and took it in his lap.

“Could you kind of leave me alone now?” he said, surly. “Cause, no offense, but suddenly I feel like you’re contaminating in my space?”

I looked at him, uncomprehending. He said, “Like – now?”

“Yes . . . but. Do you want me to help –”

“No, I’ll clean it up or not, when I fucking feel like it, thanks.”

I got up hurriedly, and went to the door almost scrambling to appease him. I could take a few kicks. It was actually a luxury of being halfway sane, that Eddie could take things out on me. I wanted to tell him: look, just take things out on me. I got outside with the expression on my face that I would have had, if I’d actually said that aloud.

The bright day was strange and lonely. I balked and looked back:

Eddie was crouched low beside the bed. His lips were moving, and as I watched, he grasped that orange Soul – various tape. A strange chill came over me, and I froze as if that would make me invisible. He was just holding a cassette. He was just holding a cassette. But lingering on the step with my mouth hanging open, stalled, I had a stirring vision of a strange pale beach. Eddie was standing in the sand, with his back to me, one hand raised as if waving. He was unnaturally still, like a cardboard cut-out.

The sea moved in the background. The moon flowed, too, if you watched it closely – it was only masquerading as a moon – it was something worse. Even the sand gently guttered. Only Eddie was stock still.

It wasn’t our beach but I felt certain I had seen it somewhere, it was a real beach somewhere. And it was The End.

My gut kept insisting this was a true and urgent premonition.

I pulled the door shut. It was too much, finally. My premonitions never came true, no matter how they trumpeted themselves as “really true this time.” All such tub-thumping from my brain was sheer agenda. This was a thinly veiled excuse to go back and emote.

I turned neatly (while my heart remained at 180 degrees to me, aimed steadfastly at my brother) and walked away, back into my life with Ralph.