Dear Glory,
When I got your letter I truly hoped you’d found mine waiting for you when you returned from your walk. Consider it an embrace from across these many miles.
I can’t condemn someone for talking through grief. That woman felt her sacrifice gave her the right to speak to you in that manner, but it doesn’t mean her opinion is a correct one.
Even so, being slapped with someone else’s reality is still a slap. What did it awaken in you? An awareness of the harsh nature of cause and effect? In some ways you’ve allowed this woman to construct her opinion, and though it may be as flimsy and unstable as a house of cards, the deck was comprised of your actions.
So act differently. Those three teenagers dancing under an indulgent moon? They’re gone. Let them go. The fairy tales spun by the past have no bearing on our present. History is telling us to. Your current life demands it. That woman says she knows you? Impossible. You don’t know yourself yet. But you will.
You are capable of so much, hon. I don’t always agree with your choices, but it’s a sign of your growing spirit that you continue to make them...and cheer the outcome or suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, you are doing the latter right now, but in no way should that stop you from figuring out where you fit in this changing world.
And poor Levi. He needs to find his place, as well. This war has so many casualties, including his self-respect. It truly is the touchiest of topics, the boys who stayed home. I thought you were absolutely right in your observation, however ironic, that war gives so many opportunities for kindness. Can you find a way to be a good friend to Levi without wrecking your marriage? You must.
As for Robert, I believe honesty is ultimately the best route. That said, I haven’t always lived by that belief. Secrets are strange, volatile things, often bursting into the public sphere at the most inopportune times.
I’m seeing this play out before my eyes with Charlie and Irene. They’ve grown uncomfortable around each other since that ill-fated meeting with Mrs. Kleinschmidt. Charlie’s secret—whatever it is—is a knife scraping at the slender rope tying them together. I know Irene wants to ask him questions, but I fear she already believes the worst scenario her feverish brain can envision. For her, it’s more tolerable to suffer through this strange purgatory between a healthy and broken relationship than risk an actual confrontation.
Charlie’s got the itch to run. I can see it in the way he sits—back stiff, legs folded, feet on the ground, palms down and ready to push off. The thing is, it’s taken me a while to figure out what’s in his heart, but I honestly think there is good in there. Or at least the good far outweighs the bad. It’s only in the telling of his secret that the burden will release, for both of them. It’s up to you to decide whether or not releasing yours will do the same, for Robert, Levi and yourself.
So my advice for the day is this: brush your hair, put on lipstick and go into town for a walk. Hold your head high and your spirit higher. Remember the words of our venerable First Lady: “It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know.” (I snipped this quotation from her newspaper column years ago and keep it along with a bunch of others by my bedside. Sal teases me about it, but I’ve caught him reading them. I think he’s got a crush on old Eleanor. But then again, who wouldn’t?)
Take care, dear.
With love,
Rita