The Letter in My Sock Drawer

What the letter said

That afternoon, with Wayne gone back to his obituaries, I took the envelope out to the porch and read it.

I had not read it in years. A person forgets what she sounded like, and I did not entirely recognize the woman on the page, who was fifty-six years old and scared.

I am going to put down some of it here because I think it matters. I’m not proud of every line.

Dear Margie,

It is one in the morning and I am at the kitchen table in my robe, so forgive my handwriting.

I am not writing to say you were right about the onions, although you were.

I am writing about what I said in your kitchen. I told you I was the one Mom asked for. It was a mean thing and I knew it was mean while it was still in my mouth. I said it because it was the only thing I had that you didn’t. You had every weekday. You had the nurses’ names and the pills and the blanket folded back on the left. I had Sundays, and a thermos of coffee, and a song.

You were right about the other thing too. I wasn’t there. I could have asked the school for leave and I never did. I was afraid of what I would see if I stayed past four o’clock on a Sunday. So I drove away and let you see it. All of it. And I let you carry it, and then I got angry at you for being the one who knew.

I don’t want to be right, and I don’t want you to say you’re sorry first. I would just like to sit in your kitchen with you and not talk about onions.

If you want to call, I’m home. If you want to write, I’ll read it standing at the mailbox.

Your sister, Arlene

I read that on the porch in the cold, in my cardigan, with my hands going numb. When I was done I folded it into its old creases and sat there a while, and a red-winged blackbird, late for the season, worked its way along the fence.

But it was out of date. It said nothing about Don, whom I had loved, whose plate of ham I had refused. It was a letter from a woman who thought she had lost a sister last week.

So Friday night I got Wayne’s reading glasses and sat at the table. The blue pen had long since died, so I used a black one from the junk drawer. On the fourth page, under my name, I wrote small, in a hand shakier than I liked.

It is October of 2026 and I am still sorry. I am also sorry about Don. I stood in your line and said nothing that mattered. I am bringing this myself.

I looked at that last sentence a long time. For eleven years the letter had been something to mail, which meant something to wait on. A letter in the mail can sit on a counter for a week. It can be put in a drawer. It can come back.

If I brought it myself, there would be a face on the other side. I would have to stand there while she read.

I did not sleep much.