The Letter
by Kayla Smith
In the candlelight, Ruth was hunched over the table, staring at her words on the page. I’m gettin’ married today.
She wasn’t sure she’d finish the letter in time, because of her constant pausing to adjust her dress. The itchy cotton material fit a bit tight around her figure, so at every shift in her seat, it rubbed against her skin.
Ruth wrote, scratching the pencil across the page’s surface. Ain’t this great news? Momma is happy that I’ll be marryin’ a respectful man, and that she don’t have to worry ‘bout me anymore. Some good do come from war.
Ruth paused to adjust her dress again, the tan fabric contrasting with her warm brown skin. She sighed, recalling how her mother-in-law had handed her the dress thirty minutes prior. After the marriage was official, she’d be expected to give that same dress to her future daughter. The thought was unbearable, so she distracted herself by looking toward the arch window instead.
***
Thirty minutes felt like looming hours. Maybe it was the winter’s darkness that rushed through the window, devouring the light that shone when she first arrived. Now, Ruth found herself too distracted.
She wrote another sentence: I wish you were here.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Ruth stood up from her seat, hiding the letter behind her back, her eyes following the door as it swung open.
There stood her mother-in-law-to-be, Anne. With her arms outstretched, she entered the room.
“Ruth, my dear,” she said. “You look perfect!”
A large church hat sat atop her head. Once she reached her, Anne beckoned Ruth to place her hands in the palms of her own.
Quickly, Ruth let the letter fall to the floor before clasping Anne’s hands.
Anne leaned in close. “You know, when I was pregnant with Samuel, I prayed for a daughter I could give my weddin’ dress to.” Her voice lowered to a whisper, full of warmth. “You the daughter I prayed for.”
Her warmth was beginning to burn.
Ruth forced herself to mirror Anne’s smile, which soon faltered.
“How you feelin’?” she asked.
Ruth hesitated, unsure of what to say. At that moment, she could have answered about her feelings following the recent death of her father—her grief still hung over her. However, it was the wedding she thought of first. It was the marriage with Samuel that was on her mind.
“Ain’t too good, to be honest,” she whispered.
Pity spread across Anne’s face as she squeezed Ruth’s hands.
“I know it’s hard when Daddy don’t come home. I’ll keep your family in my prayers.”
Slowly, Ruth loosened her hold on Anne’s fingers, her eyes trailing to the wall behind Anne. She realized her feelings were misunderstood.
Forcing her attention back to Anne, she smiled.
“Thank you.”
The words almost stuck in her throat. On the surface, her smile remained, but inside, a twinge of guilt churned in her stomach. The truth lingered on her mind: she felt worse about this day than she did the day she found out her father was dead.
It felt like hours had gone by before Anne let go and took a step back. Ruth thought that her mother-in-law-to-be would leave then, but it seemed something had caught her eye.
“You dropped somethin’, dear,” Anne said, reaching down to pick up the letter. Before she could, Ruth hurried to snatch it off the floor.
“It’s just a letter from my cousin,” she lied. “She was wishing Samuel and I well, that’s all.”
“Gina, was it? Too bad she couldn’t make it.”
“Yes, too bad.”
Anne smiled, rubbing Ruth’s arm, “I don’t wanna hold you up any longer. You only got an hour.”
Then Anne left, shutting the door behind her. Ruth quickly sat back down at the table, placing the letter on the hard surface as she continued writing with her pencil.
Samuel is my fiancé. Surprisin’, right? Joseph, I neva thought I’d end up marryin’ your best friend. But, in a way, he kinda reminds me of you, flaws and all.
Ruth continued to write how they were similar through kindness, and that she admired how Samuel tried to support her through her father’s death. Right after he got back from the war, he was there, comforting her, even though he needed comfort, too.
Ruth expressed that in some ways Samuel was quite different. In terms of his admiration, Samuel admired her without ever looking her in her eyes. His gaze always lingered below her neck, his pupils growing as they roamed across her hourglass figure. He was quite reserved as well, never burdening Ruth with his feelings. Samuel took great care in giving Ruth space to feel. Even when hugging her, he left before she could cry,
Joseph differed from Samuel in the way that Ruth’s feelings never chased him off. He wasn’t afraid of his own emotions, at least not until his father started to see them as a weakness. Joseph was told that he was less of a man, and soon, he felt the pressure to prove himself to a father who rejected him entirely. Despite being invisible to the old man, he never let that stop him from seeing others.
Maybe if you’d let go of that pressure, I’d be marryin’ you instead! she wrote.
Ruth paused, crossing out the last sentence. Her breathing was rapid, and a burning sensation rushed to her ears. She was letting her pain seep into her writing, and that wasn’t the purpose of this letter. Its only purpose was to highlight the things she should be grateful for.
As Ruth rubbed her face with her palms, a conflicted feeling arose in her chest. However, before she could face that feeling, the door creaked open. Ruth’s mother slowly walked in. Her slow steps toward Ruth were deliberate. The woman’s gloved hands clasped together behind her back, as she held stern, unbroken eye contact with Ruth. In her presence, she was a little girl again, about to be scolded for being disobedient. The woman got closer, her shadow growing larger across the wall, and the clunk of her cracked leather pumps echoed through the small room. The sound was almost louder than Ruth’s uneven breaths.
The woman stopped, leaving a meter distance between them. “Listen to me.”
Ruth fisted the sides of her dress. “I’m listenin’.”
“This is for your own good,” the woman said, pressing her hand to her heart. “Your daddy, he would want it this way.”
Ruth lifted up her hand, “Five days, Momma.”
“Ruth—”
“It’s been five days since we got that letter ‘bout his death. Do you even remember how it happened?”
The woman ignored the question.“I let you delay marriage because of the war, but our men are done fightin’, Ruth.”
Ruth reminded the woman anyway. “Daddy and the battalion were workin’ in the tunnels, and the walls collapsed in on them. The military wrote to us that they couldn’t get to his body.” Her voice cracked. “The worst part is that I know they lyin’. I know they ain’t gonna bother gettin’ his body because of his colour.”
Ruth pointed her index toward the floor. “Five days ago, in this very church, we ain’t even have a body to bury at his funeral. Don’t you remember?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then stop actin’ like it didn’t happen!”
An angry expression traced the woman’s facial features, boldly outlined by the dim candlelight. She leaned forward, putting her finger in Ruth’s face.
“Do not raise your voice at me. Do not raise your voice in church. Show some respect.”
Silence.
The woman shook her head, turning to face the table. “I raised you better.”
At that moment, it seemed she couldn’t stand to look at her daughter. Ruth couldn’t stand looking at her mother either, so she was about to ask her to leave. Before she could speak, the woman lifted the letter off the table.
“What’s this?” she asked. Her eyes scanned the words on the page.
Ruth’s heart banged against her chest. This time, fear started to consume her. How irresponsible of her to leave such an intimate letter exposed for her mother to see. Of all people.
“It’s a letter for Joseph.”
Her mother turned to look at her, and it felt like an eternity before she responded. “You’re gettin’ married to Samuel.”
“I don’t love Samuel,” Ruth said.
“You think marriage is ‘bout love? ‘Cause it ain’t. It’s ‘bout stability and status. Love?” she chuckled. “I married your daddy because he was the first man to ask me for my hand.”
As much as that statement burned a hole through Ruth’s heart, she already knew, deep down, that her parents didn’t love each other.
“I don’t wanna end up like you,” Ruth said.
The woman looked angry. “You go’n’ end up like me if you don’t walk up to that altar in an hour. Every woman go’n’ stare at you, go’n’ pity you when you walk down the street. Look at me! Your daddy is gone now, and I’m nothin’.”
Ruth opened her mouth to speak, but the woman shushed her.
“You’re picky,” she said, tearing the letter to shreds.
Ruth watched the pieces scatter across the floor with horror in her eyes.
“Keep this up and you go’n’ die alone.”
The woman turned around, and headed to the door, but stopped to look back at her daughter. Her fingers twitched at her sides, opening and closing into fists.
“You grow to love the things he do for you: When he patch up a leaky roof, and work all day in the hot sun, so the family don’t go hungry… He can give you children.”
Her mother paused for a moment, letting those last words linger in the air. As she opened the door to leave she whispered, “Clean that mess up.”
Then she was gone.
Ignoring the woman’s order, Ruth stepped past the shreds. She began scavenging the room for another piece of paper. She rummaged through the drawers on the sides of the walls, finding most of them empty, and some filled with rusty bracelets and necklaces past brides had forgotten.
She searched the last drawer and finally found a stack of paper and a single fountain pen. Ruth picked up a page, feeling its rough texture between her fingers. Next, she picked up the pen, turning it over in her hand, wondering how the person who left it there was able to afford something so nice.
The candlelight flickered across the room as Ruth brought the items over to the table and sat down, beginning to write. She desperately needed to make a new letter.
No more pretending.
Her pen glided across the page. She wrote that she was getting married, and that she wished Joseph was there. Samuel was her fiancé. When she heard the news that she’d have to marry Joseph’s best friend, she was disappointed. Ruth wished it was Joseph instead.
But Momma told me I couldn’t marry no dead man.
In no way were the two men the same. Samuel’s kindness was an act. When he came back from the war, she thought he was being kind when he pulled her into his arms for an embrace. He gave her his condolences about her father and said that everything was going to be okay. His kindness was squeezing his chest against her breasts, and his kindness was a hand that trailed down too far along her body.
Ruth continued writing from her memory.
We sat down after that, and I had to force myself to forget about him touching me before the bile in my stomach made its way to my mouth.
She mentioned his shaking, asking him if he was okay. He brushed it off.
She mentioned Joseph, asking him if he was okay…
Black ink pooled onto the spot Ruth last wrote. She pressed the pen hard against the paper as she remembered Samuel’s next words.
He was a good friend. Too bad he dead.
While he spoke deadpan, his arm was still shaking. With his right hand, he forced it still against his thigh. Samuel was clearly in distress, but he ignored it and carried on.
Good do come from war. If Joseph were here, he’d take you away from me.
Ruth was too shocked to say a thing. Samuel was unrecognizable. Her throat closed up, and when she tried to speak, she couldn’t. All that came out was a whimper, and then a tear from her eye. That was all it took for him to stand up and leave without saying a word.
Ruth continued writing, now about the man she loved. She wrote that Joseph should've listened to her when she told him not to go fight for a country that wouldn’t fight for him. If he’d only listened when she told him they’d treat him the same when he came back from the war, as they did when he was here in this run-down community.
I remember how hard I begged you to stay. I still feel the wetness on my face from my tears and the snot that dripped from my nose.
Ruth remembered gripping the collar of Joseph’s shirt, pleading for him to listen.
There was that look in your eye, full of certainty that things would change once you put on that khaki uniform. If you fought for them, not only would they see you as equal, they’d see all of us as equal.
Joseph believed that their community would finally be given clean water, that the sewage would be cleared, and that they’d be offered a place to dispose of their trash.
But I knew better. I knew that no matter how many enemies you shot down, you’d come back home to a community surrounded by smelly dumps, hospitals full of fever, and prisons full of unrest.
He’d held Ruth steady on the dirt so that her own trembling wouldn’t cause her to stumble to the ground. He told her, “I’m going to be a hero.” But heroes didn’t look like him.
After finishing her last sentence, Ruth placed the pen gently beside the letter on the table. As she scooted her chair back, it grunted against the floor. Just then, an elderly woman from the church peeked through the slightly ajar door.
“It’s time, Ruth. Are you ready?”
Ruth nodded. She realized how slowly time had passed when she first walked into the waiting room, but now, after writing her final words to Joseph, an hour seemed to have flown by. She swiftly walked past the table, and the breeze from her dress blew out the lone candle in the corner, drowning the room in darkness.
Now the space was empty without Ruth. She’d taken most of her stuff with her, but chose to leave the most important thing behind. There on that damp page, it remained, pulsing against the blurred ink containing her love.