LETTERS TO GEORGIA

The rusted gates fell back on their hinges with a single push from her fingers. Nostalgia did not set in until she walked past the door and into the living room. The cabin was not a complete disaster, but it showed its years. All the furniture that had been left behind was worn and weathered. Termites had eaten away at a few doors, and the ones that still stood in decent condition creaked when she pushed at them, as their hinges were rusted. 

When she got to the study, the door held as she tried to open it. May gripped the handle and shook hard, but it didn’t budge. Determined and too tired to find an alternative, May took a step back and, with a hard kick, knocked the door loose. She stepped around the fallen door and into the stuffy room. The desk and chair were covered with dust while cobwebs lined the edges of the empty shelves. One of the windows had taken a hit, and May inspected it, looking down from the shattered glass towards their old garden. A small draft blew past her, but it wasn’t too strong to raise concern. 

The mask made handling the furniture in the room bearable as she didn’t inhale all the dust that rose when she began rattling the desk drawer, trying to shake it loose. Her grandfather spent most of his time writing, first when they lived here and even after moving. He loved to write, pen and paper as his medium. Who could blame him when his handwriting was as sophisticated as it was? Another shake and the drawer opened, the metal box sliding across the bottom to reveal itself, and May picked it out. She hadn’t planned to read them, but she found herself settling into the rugged chair and opening the box. Using the flashlight from her phone, she looked into the box, debating which letter to start with. 

The letters were old, the papers browned from age, and May made sure to handle them with care, unable to bear the thought of damaging them. Of course, she knew what they were, she had read some of them once, a long time ago, when she was only eight. Some of the words were faded but manageably visible. In the dim-lit room, with the winds howling outside the room, she settled to begin reading the letters. 

“Dear Georgia. Has it really been two weeks since I last saw you, I honestly can’t believe it? I wish I had ridden fast after that train. Maybe I gave up too easily. I would have liked to see your smile one more time and not remember you the way I do, crying and yelling as they dragged you away to that place you didn’t want to be. I try not to think about it too much, but it’s been two weeks, and still, you have not written to me. I fear maybe you are angry with me or your father has found a way to intercept my letters. 

Alone here, I work like my father tells me and only write when no one watches because they are still against it. Aren’t we a sad pair, my beautiful Georgia? A modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Your father would never accept me as I am a servant’s son, and my father, although working for your father for years, hates everything related to him. My mom shares his opinions because of her own prejudices. I am alone in this love. I have no one to talk to with our secret, so I told the stars about you.”

May laughed, a tear rolled down her cheek, dropping against her hand. She wiped it away with a sad smile. A cloud of melancholia formed over her head while she read his words, and May looked away from the letter to collect her composure. Her grandfather had always been strange even before dementia set in. he always liked to talk to the skies in the nighttime, and she never really understood why. He never explained, saying it was his own personal secret. It was clear the stars had become his friends, the moon a constant companion when no one around him cared for his feelings. In the darkness of the night, he found solace. 

May finished the letter, barely holding herself together as she dug through the box for another one, picking at random. Her neck was sore from leaning over and sitting folded on the weather-beaten seat, so she adjusted herself and began to read again. 

“My Georgia. I have been sending letters to you through Philip. He always comes back with them stamped returned to sender, but still, I do this. Maybe it’s the only way to keep my sanity. It’s now been two years since I last saw you and I am sorry to say that I am slowly forgetting. Your delicate features that I once spent nights dreaming of, imagined during the morning, have begun to fade. I remember you through the pictures your father has in the mansion, but I have not been in there in months, and I find myself wondering what you look like now. Is your hair still black as the night, or have you followed your dream of dying it to a lighter shade? Are you taller, or still small enough to fit in my suitcase? 

I wonder what styles you prefer now. The girls in the village always seem to be discovering new trends with each passing day. Are you into heeled slippers, or do you still prefer flats? I am taller. In case you are also wondering what I look like. My hair is not lengthy anymore, I cut it a few months ago, and now it’s short and curly. My right index finger is slightly notched at the top; an accident a year ago has deformed it a little. I also like classical music now; the types I hear coming from the master’s mansion during his parties. I am scared to ask him of you, but I remember how much you loved to listen from your room. So now, I crouch down just beneath the windows and listen to them play. 

Each day I love you more, today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow. It’s a love that is choking me as I worry about you more and more. I don’t know why you never write back; I would like to think it’s because of the master. It frightens me that you might have found someone else, and on those days, I lose hope. Still, I believe that one day, when I least expect it, you will write back to me.”

The sound of dogs barking made her look away, noting that it had gotten considerably darker than when she arrived. Concerned, May looked down at her watch to check the time, noting that it was twenty minutes past six. It wouldn’t be safe to stay there too late; the area was almost deserted. She decided to read one more letter before she left. She looked through it carefully and chose the last letter addressed to the Florina Boarding School for Girls. It was the shortest of the letters, one page long. 

“Dear Georgia, this is my last letter to you. I am no longer in your father’s house. I left at the first glimpse of an opportunity. He is a cantankerous old man, and my father is not too far behind him. So, to save whatever joy is left in me. I had to go. After all, who we are is all we have left, and if we lose ourselves, then who do we become. I will cherish all the memories we had, and I hope wherever you are, there is joy in your world as well. I am sorry I didn’t uphold my promise to wait till your return. I am writing to you from my new place. Hopefully, the address will stay the same for years to come. It’s in Hook town, close to the city and with the most glorious view of the Francis River. If you ever feel like you need an old friend, I will be here. Forever yours, Fin.”

The papers crinkled as she folded them before stacking them in the box and snapping the metal lid on. Looking around the empty room, she pushed the box into her backpack. When she stood from the chair to leave, pieces of leather from the seat clung to her jeans. May muttered to herself, dusting them off while she walked out of the study.

Her mother was twenty-four when she found the letters in the house and decided to hire a detective to look for Georgia Dunkins; her father’s first love. From that investigation, they found out that Georgia died from an infection she contracted during her trip on the train. Her father had the boarding school, where she was supposed to stay, return her grandfather’s letters with no note to explain that the girl had passed away. No one but Georgia’s father knew she had passed, and he took that to his grave when he died as well. 

Even though her grandfather moved on from that part of his life, learning what happened to Georgia unsettled him. May looked down at the ground as she walked away from the house, thinking of her distraught mother; they were all in mourning after his death, but it seemed to hit her the hardest. May didn’t know what use her father’s letters would be to her, but she thought it was a good idea to retrieve them. The old man had a few pictures, but his letters became who he was. Her mother had all of the ones he had written after they moved out of the old home, but May thought there was something special about the ones he wrote as a teenager. 

As she sat in the taxi, holding the box to her chest, she pondered on the letters inside. She wondered what it would have felt like to love someone intensely and be separated because someone thought you were too low for their family. Her grandmother always joked that blessings come in pieces and her grandfather found another piece after leaving the ranch. He fell in love again, and he started another family.

Love was complicated, she summarized. There was always a chance, no matter how minute, that you could love someone whose family would never accept you or who your family would never accept. She wondered in the solemn silence, sitting in the backseat as she rocked back and forth as the driver steered through the rough roads; May wondered what her own story would look like. A beautiful tale she could recount to her grandkids, or one that would always be locked away, alive only on the pieces of papers to which the stories were inked.