20

LETTERS

For months the mail had been piling up on a table by the door, neglected by everyone, but most especially by Jo. “My Dearest Miss March,” they all began, and then devolved from there. From Pennsylvania and Delaware, Ohio and the wilds of the Minnesota frontier—even as far away as London or Paris—girls were writing to Jo with one question: What happens next?

Every week, when Mama went into town to buy groceries and collect the post at the post-office in Concord village, she brought home at least three or four and sometimes as many as nine or ten letters about Little Women.

On the one hand, it was clear the book had touched its readers with the sweet and tender tale of four devoted sisters, their mother, and the boy next door.

On the other hand, all Jo’s efforts to complete the sequel had been, so far, a total disaster. Her first effort had been too dull; the second too interesting, for all the wrong reasons. Lacking in good taste, as Niles had said, and not serving your characters or your readers.

So when those same readers were writing her letters with their demands on her time and imagination, along with their ideas for her sequel, Jo started to view the mail as an oppression, a constant reminder of her failure. She was disappointing her readers, all the young ladies waiting to find out the end of the story. Not to mention her editor, her family, and worst of all, herself.

“Christopher Columbus!” she exclaimed one day when Meg came in with the post, a full fifteen new letters all addressed to Miss Josephine March, Authoress. “Can’t my gentle readers leave me in peace?”

“Apparently not.” Meg opened one envelope. “Dear Miss March,” she read.

I am writing to tell you how much your Little Women has meant to myself and my little sister, and to implore you, please, to make sure that the Laurie in your book marries Jo. My sister Mary and I are quite determined that no other fate for Jo would be at all acceptable, and we have shed many tears over the prospect that this might not be the case. Please write us back and set our minds at ease over the fate of our favorite characters. Yours truly, Anna Lake

Meg looked satisfied and held out the letter to her sister. “There now, Jo. It’s not just myself, then. Or Niles or Mama or even Laurie. The whole world knows the two of you belong together.”

“What a bunch of rot,” Jo exclaimed, snatching the letter out of Meg’s hand. “I won’t marry Jo to Laurie for anything! Especially not to please anyone!”

“Certainly not yourself,” Meg muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing, dear.”

The front door to the house opened, and Hannah and Amy came in, carrying empty baskets back from the Hummels, who had all come down with some kind of terrible cough once more. They’d gone to take the family some of the bounty from Vegetable Valley, since they had so much and the Hummels so little. The troubled family battled a variety of ills every winter, and it strained the Marches’ pocketbook to keep their poor friends in tinder and coal to keep the winter wolves at bay. The Marches had known poverty, but they had never known abject poverty, and Jo was often stunned by the profound difference between having very little and having nothing at all.

“Now then,” said Mama, taking off her gloves, “what’s this row I’m hearing? My Meg and Jo arguing?”

“Not at all, Mama,” said Jo. “We were discussing my reader mail, that’s all.”

“And how all her readers want Jo and Laurie to marry,” Meg added, with a merry gleam in her eye.

“Don’t tease her, Meg. It’s her book and her characters, and she must be free to pursue their fates without anyone’s input. Even ours.”

“Even when she borrows us so mercilessly for her books, and writes us embarrassing fates, and makes us a national laughing-stock?” Amy demanded.

“You’re hardly a laughing-stock.” Mama smoothed Amy’s glossy curls. “And yes, even then.”

“Hmm,” Amy said, and frowned. Her cheeks were pale, as if the thought of appearing in Jo’s sequel were a humiliation. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a say in what Jo writes about me.”

“Because it’s not about you, goose,” Jo said. “Not the real you. Just the version of you I’ve invented.”

“If the character is an invention, why couldn’t she be named something other than Amy March?”

“Christopher Columbus!” Jo exclaimed again. “Everyone’s a critic.”

While Jo scowled and stomped around, the youngest March picked up the bundle and read the return addresses. Two letters had traveled all the way from someplace called Rochester, Minnesota, and another all the way from San Francisco.

Amy thrilled to imagine the journey that letter had taken—perhaps on horseback across the Rocky Mountains and the plains, past Indians and cowboys and wagon trains headed for Oregon. Or else it had been sent on a steamship that traveled down the coast, then sent by wagon across the Isthmus of Panama, and up from Florida on yet another steamship. Perhaps it had been captured by pirates, ballooned on a desert island.

She said as much to Meg, who laughed and said, “Marooned. And what kind of pirate would want Jo’s mail?”

“A bored one, I’d imagine,” said Jo.

Amy pouted. “I don’t see why you have to tease me,” she said. “The two of you went to New York and had all kinds of adventures without me! I always get left behind! I only get to stay home and imagine an adventure. Jo’s old mail is as close as I ever get.”

Meg touched her chin and said, kindly, “You will have your own adventures one day, dearest. Jo and I never went anywhere, either, when we were your age.”

“Jo won’t even write me an adventure,” said Amy.

“I told you, I don’t want to describe so many foreign cities! Especially ones I’ve never even been to!” said Jo.

“But you will go one day—you’ve been invited to Paris and London. You’ll be there before you know it! Unlike me, who shall never leave Concord,” said Amy.

“Beth never left Concord and she was the happiest of us,” said Jo.

“Beth was a saint!” said Amy. “And I shall never measure up to her. I’m sorry you’re left with me, Jo! I know Beth was your favorite.”

Jo reeled backward as Meg held up her arms, horrified. “Amy! Don’t say such things!”

“All are loved equally,” said Mama, trying to soothe her youngest, “in this peaceable cottage.”

“That’s not true,” said Amy. “In Jo’s book I am vain and ridiculous, and Beth is sweet and perfect and is gifted a piano.”

They all turned to the piano in the middle of the room, which had stood silent for so long now; none could bear to play since Beth’s death.

Next to the fire, Jo finally found her voice. “Do I not set aside money every month for your art lessons and charcoals and paints?”

“You do.”

“And to keep you in ribbons and bows?”

“I have enough ribbons.”

Jo shook her head. “Amy, you are as dear to me as Beth, and it grieves me to think you believe otherwise.”

Amy set down her basket and sighed. “Of course I don’t.”

“There,” said Meg, as she and Mama came between the sisters and enveloped both in a hug.

“We are all we have,” said Mama, and they all heard the tears in her voice. “Love each other, my dears. Remember that. In the end, there is little else that matters.”

The sisters resolved to remember. They broke off the embrace, and Jo ruffled Amy’s hair. “You shall have an adventure someday, and in your own very real life—not just in my sequel.”

Amy sighed. “It’s just so tedious to wait for someday!”

“Darling,” Mama said. “If you’re so interested in Jo’s letters, perhaps you would help her answer them?”

At this, Amy perked up considerably. The idea of sending letters to London and Paris and California was the most excitement she’d felt in weeks. “Oh! May I, Jo? Please?”

Jo heaved a great sigh. “I suppose someone should. I can’t bear to write them all back myself.”

“And it will be good for you, Amy dear,” said Mama. “A less teddy-us way to practice your writing.”

“But I insist on seeing every one before you send it,” Jo cried. “I won’t let you send anything that would embarrass me.”

“Jo, honestly. Your sister would never embarrass you.”

Amy flung herself down on the sofa. “I’m already exhausted thinking about answering Jo’s mail, and I haven’t even started.”

“You do look tired,” Mama said, smoothing back Amy’s hair and letting her hand linger a moment on the white forehead, the pink-spotted cheek. “You may write three letters today, if that suits you. To get started.”

So Amy went to work on Jo’s letters, starting with the oldest. There were at least a hundred to get to, which would take Amy a month at this pace, and she grew tired just thinking about all the work she’d have to put in.

But she wrote carefully, in her best handwriting, as if she were Jo: How pleased I am to hear you enjoyed my novel. I am hard at work on the sequel, and will take your ideas under advisement. Yours most sincerely, Josephine March.

She worked for hours, until it got dark.

“There,” said Amy, bringing them to Jo at dinnertime. She felt weary beyond measure, and fuzzy-headed, as if she’d been awake all night with insomnia. “Now tell me I didn’t do a good job of it.”

Jo took the letters and read them approvingly, though she found several spelling errors and more than one comma splice. “If you’re going to impersonate me, you have to use proper grammar! I thought this whole experiment was to give you more practice with your writing, not to showcase your deficiencies.”

“Jo,” said Mama, “don’t chastise your sister. She is doing you a favor, after all.” Then Mama’s face changed. She looked alarmed. “Are you all right, my dear? You look pale.”

Amy swayed a little and grabbed the table to steady herself. “I do feel a little strange. I thought I was just tired from all that writing.”

“Were you playing with little Christina Hummel this morning? The sick baby?”

“Just keeping her from eating grass, Mama, while Hannah helped with the baking. She was stuffing leaves into her mouth by the handful.”

“Hmm,” Mama said, looking serious. “You’re much too warm, Amy.” She looked panicked, and Jo remembered that tone of voice, that fear. This was how Beth’s sickness began. Always with the Hummels. Always with the fever.

Jo looked up at Amy’s pale face and couldn’t help but be reminded of Beth on her deathbed. “Hannah, get us warm blankets and a compress. Now!” she said, rattling their old, faithful servant.

Amy shook her head. “I’m fine, I’m telling you. There’s nothing to worry about. If anything, I’m just a little cold.”

Then she lay back on the sofa and closed her eyes.

Amy coughed into her hand, and they heard it: the beginnings of a rattle at the bottom of her lungs.

“Amy!” Jo cried. “You are terribly sick!”

“To bed with you,” Mama said, and shooed Amy upstairs. “The mail can wait.”