THEO
THE TASTE in my mouth was so familiar, so startling, it woke me. I had to take a drink, hoping the mouthwash would burn my taste buds, render them numb. I drank, then stood at my bathroom mirror hardly recognizing the haggard man who stared back. Brushed my teeth. The taste, a mix of juk rice with eggs and seeds from Korean pine, was still there. I splashed cold water on my face, got dressed, and headed out. It was Sunday—had to get to work.
Before heading to Saint Mary’s, I walked over to Mrs. B’s as she’d asked me to help her move her easel out to her porch. There was a tropical like breeze with the hint of her rose garden. I hesitated at the gate; she was in her window, unaware of me, captivated by the letter in her hand. She wore her green Chemise with the black frog buttons. Her snow-white hair, not in its usual bun, floated across one shoulder.
She was reputed to have had a lover, a Chinese ship captain, who sent her gifts and letters from afar. She held one of the tawny letters from her red basket up close to her aging eyes. She’d read them every Sunday for thirty years: her sacred observance on the day set aside for sacred things. Rumor was her captain disappeared one day and those letters were all she had left.
I felt like a trespasser at the gate and turned away, eyeing the street for real intruders—glanced at the Bouvre house. I always thought Andréa would be like Mrs. B when we grew old, sitting on the porch painting sunsets, sunrises, the mountaintop . . . and me, I’d be chopping wood in the backyard or building something. It was our world, in my vision. Never doubted who she was, just never knew who I was or could be. Never realized that it didn’t matter as long as I was with her. “Too late” happened so fast that it, too, left an eternal taste in my mouth.
***
Mrs. B folded the letter back into its mysterious place to await the next Sunday and the next. I headed up the steps and knocked on the ornately painted door of her rustic log cabin. She opened the entrance, a door within a door, latched with a Chinese brass plate in the center. Ironic that her Captain sent her that door . . . ironic because they were fated to live on separate sides.
“Mornin’, Theodore.” Her eyes, red and raw.
“Mornin’,” I said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You can always ask.”
“Why do you read those letters every week?”
She tied her silk scarf and said, “Solomon has told me for fifty years to burn them.”
“Yeah, he’s big on burning things.”
“I read them,” she said, “to feel something so deeply it nearly cracks me in two. To understand the price I paid for freedom.” She pulled on her jacket. “You see, had I gone to China I would have gained love, but lost the life I’d fought and won, from my father. I’d have lived as a white woman married to a Chinese man. Hated by all the other women, confined in his palace, no work, no teaching children, no taking trips, no seeing family and friends again.”
“You never told me—”
“Before you went to Japan and Korea you wouldn’t have understood how different things are there . . . those cultures . . . so different from here.”
“True.”
“I loved him with all my being . . . but I loved myself more. I can live with that. It was the price I paid. And he . . . well, he could not move to this country for many reasons.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I shouldn’t have—”
“So, those letters are a grave I visit, where I mourn, leave my tears, and then move on, remembering I was once another person, one who was loved. He said it was our fate; made me promise to go on without him, and have a happy life. I hated that promise when I made it. I hate it still. But I’ll keep it till my last breath.”
“You’re braver than me,” I said.
“It’s not bravery, Theo, it’s life. Grow up. The curtain of fate falls, destiny delivers, life goes on. You can’t erase what’s done. Let me ask you something; do you regret tryin’ to save those poor Korean youngsters?”
“No, I’d do it again. Regardless of outcome.”
“Exactly, so it’s not regret you have in those letters on your table, it’s grief. It’s your suffering. And maybe some real hard growing up.”
“Maybe.”
“We all have grief and we have containers for our grief. Pearl has that spare cup; Imogene, her death shelf with those candles; Solomon, a Frog box; and you, my dear young man, have those letters. They’re not love letters, like mine. Yours hold something you can’t face.”
She pulled her coat on, looked at me, and said, “I doubt it’s Andréa, but she’s part of it. You made a mistake there and now you have to live with that mistake. But more, I think those letters hold the horror of what you went through in war. Those bloody letters contain your grief, don’t they? Bleed them of it, you must embrace your grief in order to transcend it, Theo, you know this. Then burn them, like Solomon says. Burn them like you did that building when you were a boy.”
“Does everyone know about that?” I asked.
“If you recall, I am why you’re here in Manzanita . . . Of course I know. Now, you regret burning that building?”
“I only regret not being able to save my brother.”
“And you don’t regret trying to help those children. But you do regret whatever happened between you and Andréa, right?”
I nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Now we’re clear on what is and what is not regret. Read them, then burn them, and then just walk away, have a happy life whether you want to or not.”
“Right,” I said. “Happy life. Want to or not. Grow up. No regret. Got it.”
“Good. Now, leave me alone,” she said, and then pointed to her art supplies. “Zucchini bread’s in the kitchen.”
“Thanks,” I said turning to assess what needed to be moved. Without a word she was at the bottom of her stairs by the time I turned around. She tied her straw China hat over her scarf and headed toward the beach, where she would stand like a lonely heron at the edge of the shore, remembering, as she did every Sunday.