That night, when I got home from work, Grandma was already in bed. My parents were relaxing in front of the TV in the living room. “Your grandma has been asking for you,” my mom said. She took my hand and showed it to my dad. “This is what she’s been talking about all day.” She rubbed the heart with her thumb. “It’s not as dark as it was last night, but you can still see it.”
“I hate it when you write on yourself,” my dad said. “Remember that time when you drew a mustache on your face in Kindergarten?”
“It didn’t come off for a month,” my mom laughed.
“Oh, and that time he drew all over his arms, pretending they were tattoos.”
My mom took a sharp breath at that, “Oh, you don’t think kids who draw on themselves all the time are just preparing themselves to get tattoos later, do you? Mark, are you planning on getting a tattoo?”
I didn’t answer her. I’d already wandered down the hall away from them, not really in the mood to reminisce about the dumb crap I did when I was little or get into a debate over tattoos. I was going into the army in June, getting a tattoo was like a rite of passage. Did she seriously think I wasn’t going to get one? I’d been collecting ideas for the one I wanted for months.
My parents didn’t shout after me to come back, but they did continue to babble to each other about stupid stuff I’d done that I didn’t find as funny or charming as they did. I slipped into Grandma’s room to kiss her goodnight. She was still awake. I sat down on the edge of her bed and held her hands so that she could see the heart with her name again.
Grandma patted it and smiled at me. “Do you know where my letters are?”
“What letters?”
“From your grandfather.”
My eyes began to water. She knew who I was. I wished so much that I could help her right then while she was lucid. Through trembling lips I told her, “I don’t know, Grandma.”
“I kept all of them. Each one lovelier than the last.”
“When was the last time you saw them?”
Only she was already fading. I saw the fog come across her face as the world of confusion crept in again. “Will you write me one more? It’s been so long, Joe. Just one more to let me know that you’re all right.”
“Grandma?”
She fell asleep in that world where nothing made sense. Yet for just the briefest moment she shared something with me. The letters. They mattered to her after all these years. My ghost friend was right. I had to do this perfectly.
In my room I stayed up late going through websites full of love poems and Shakespeare sonnets. I thought about the words like I’d never done before and why they were written the way they were. I did my vocabulary homework in cursive and really focused on making each letter perfect. When I was all done, I went to my dad’s office and took out a piece of the linen paper he used for his business letters.
Slowly, I created a letter. Each sentence was carefully thought out. I typed it onto my computer and used the spellchecker to make sure I got everything right. Then I practiced writing it on scratch paper twice before I copied over onto the nice paper. I put a sheet of lined paper under the stationery to keep my sentences straight. At the top I put Bethany’s beautiful name in a heart, and at the bottom I wrote simply: Sincerely, Mark. I wanted to write “love” but I thought we weren’t to that point yet. I was really, truly “sincere” about the words I’d chosen. I hoped it would be enough.
I folded the letter carefully in thirds, using a ruler to make sure they were even, and placed it in an envelope, addressed it and found a stamp in the kitchen near where Dad kept the bills.
In the morning I stuck it in the mailbox before I left for school. I’d never sent a letter through the mail, and a silly thrill went through me as I closed the front of the box and popped up the red, metal flag on the side. The flag was only four inches tall, and I wished it was as tall as a tower so I’d be certain the postmaster wouldn’t miss it. I almost wanted to stay home from school and watch out my front window all day. Or better yet, park myself on a lawn chair right next to the mailbox. If the post office wasn’t in the opposite direction of my school, I’d drive over there and drop the letter off. Surely, if you took the letter straight to the post office, they got delivered faster. Was that right? I considered being late to school and following that urge. Just as I was about to open the mailbox door again, the garage door opened and my dad came out to get in his car for work.
“Whatcha doin’?” he called out to me. “You expecting something? I brought in the mail yesterday. Just junk mail.”
“I’m uh...” I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell my dad what I was doing. He’d tease me about it, and I was already too self-conscious. “I thought I saw a spider. A big one. I wanted to shoo it away so it didn’t scare Mom.”
“That was thoughtful.” Dad put his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky, took a deep breath of fresh air, and then dropped his head again. “Guess I’ll call the exterminator to swing by again.”
“Nah, Dad. It’s okay. There wasn’t anything there. Just my imagination.” I lowered the red flag and lifted my hands to show him that it was clear. Dad seemed satisfied with that, told me to have a nice day, and got in his car. I lingered in my car on the curb for a second, acting like I was looking in my backpack for something until my dad backed out and drove down the street. Then I jumped back out of my car, popped the flag up again, and kissed the top of it for luck before heading off to school.
This was Wednesday. Maybe Bethany would get my letter before the weekend. I hoped so.