As requested, I went straight home, walked into my grandmother’s room and handed the envelope to her.
“Oh! A letter for me?” She was so delighted her eyes sparkled like a child being given a lollipop.
I helped her open the envelope and unfold the letter. The ghost hadn’t used yellow notebook paper. This was a thick piece of parchment, smaller than an average sized piece of paper. A musky smell wafted up from it, as if the paper had been trying to hold the essence of the man who’d written on it. At the top was my grandmother’s name, Eileen, written in cursive and surrounded by a heart.
“You found them,” Grandma said to me, not daring to look up from the letter. Her hands trembled more than usual as I handed it to her. “You found my letters.”
“Uh, yes, Grandma. At least this one.”
She read it to herself, and when she was done she held it to her heart, closed her eyes and lifted her face toward Heaven. She shook her head ever so slowly, a blissful smile on her lips while glad tears rolled down her cheeks. My mom came in the room and saw her.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Grandma looked at my mom and then at me. “Thank you. I love you both so much. Thank you for all that you’ve done for me.”
“Mom?” Worry filled the lines around my mother’s eyes.
Grandma lifted the letter to her lips and kissed it, then lowered her head to the pillow, closed her eyes, and was gone.
“Mom? Mom!”
My mother grabbed my grandma’s wrist to check her pulse and then began sobbing. She cried out for Dad. He came running in. A chaotic ballet happened around me, but I stayed calm. All I did was reach for the letter. I sat at the foot of her bed and read it.
Dear Eileen,
I never got to say goodbye to you. We never got to have the life we planned. My life ended way too soon, and you’ve lived so long. You had our beautiful daughter, and she has given us a wonderful grandson. Somehow he’s been able to bring me back for just this brief time so I can see you again. I want you to come to me now. I have a place ready for us. I want you to sleep and wake up in my arms. We will be together forever now. I love you so much and always have.
All my love,
Joe
My grandfather. He was the ghost. Now I understood it all. My grandpa had died at war, leaving my pregnant grandma at home to survive without him. All she’d had of him were the letters he’d written. I wasn’t sad for Grandma. I was glad she was with him, finally. She deserved that rest.
* * * *
I wrote a letter to Bethany every week through the end of the school year, and once I left for boot camp I wrote three a week, never slowing down, even when I got deployed. Every single one of them had been in my best handwriting. All of them on some special stationery I bought just for her. And my beautiful girlfriend wrote back even more amazing letters to me, which got me through everything and made me strong so I could come home to her.
THE END