The love letter, p.23
The Love Letter, page 23
Now thousands of people would read it. Thousands of Goats. Miss Skattergoods was Ram, a writer with a nom de plume (and who could blame her?) who wrote mysteries. She was Helen’s mother’s girlfriend. They would drive around Pequot in a black Porsche.
Helen stared at the letter, her letter, printed in a book, her letter to Johnny, Johnny’s letter to her, Miss Skattergoods’s letter, originally a letter to her mother never delivered, perhaps, fallen onto the page of a book. The love letter. She loved Johnny. She loved him when she saw him. She loved him when she longed to see him. She hadn’t moved a muscle, taken a step, or blinked. She listened to Brahms and she loved Johnny. She unpacked books and she loved Johnny. It was absurd to love Johnny, impractical and undignified, and she loved Johnny. She read the letter in the book again and realized Miss Skattergoods had not used the entire original. Where was the part about the feuding blood brothers? Where was the dialogue? Helen was outraged. The letter was incomplete. It was not satisfying. Her letter had been altered. Her love letter.
I don’t like being dissatisfied, she had always said. It’s so dissatisfying. I’ll drive, she had always said. A door is ajar, said the car, and of course it was right. I drive all the time here, Johnny wrote, and he was right. I love you, Helen had not written. I don’t want to win, Edith Wharton wrote. I want to lose everything to you!
Helen picked up a pen. “Darling,” she wrote. It was on a postcard, one with a picture of Pequot’s stony beach.
Darling,
Over the edge of the precipice, on fire, forever. I know it, forever.
I see.
I love you.
Forever,
Helen
She didn’t read it over, she just sealed the postcard in an envelope, addressed it, and chose a pretty stamp with a painting of bluebells. Then Helen put her love letter beside the other love letter, in the drawer, which she closed and tried to lock. But she seemed to have lost the key.
About the Author
CATHLEEN SCHINE is the author of many novels, most recently The Three Weissmanns of Westport, as well as the internationally best-selling The Love Letter and Alice in Bed, To the Bird House, She Is Me, and The New Yorkers.
Cathleen Schine, The Love Letter
