The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [73]
Thomas, we are linked together, however much we might not wish it. As to the future, I cannot say.
So much has been left unsaid.
I could hear you calling my name when they took me away. I was in shock and couldn’t speak, or I’d have answered you. My aunt arrived at the hospital shortly after I did. To her credit, she cried once and then spent the rest of the time telling me she’d told me so. Her distrust of you has always puzzled me. Perhaps she hates all men. I’d have thought she’d have welcomed someone to take me off her hands.
I was in the hospital for five days. The uncles and cousins were vigilant, and I was never left alone. Strange treasure they were protecting, one that had already been stolen.
I went home for a day and then was sent by car to New York, Uncle Brendan driving (we hit three bars in Connecticut alone). The drive was an agony as I recall, since one whole side of me was raw. (All of me raw inside.) The days passed. They took the dressings off sometime in March. Eileen was working as a massage therapist and was gone all day. I walked the streets when I was able to. I thought of you. I used to sit for hours looking out the window, thinking of you. For several days after I was able to get out of bed, I called you repeatedly. But there was never any answer. Later my aunt wrote that you and your family had gone to Europe for a trip. Was this true? I forgot to ask you on Sunday. Then my aunt wrote that you were going out with Marissa Markham (and good riddance and so forth). Her motives were entirely transparent, but I couldn’t know for sure that it wasn’t true. People change, don’t they? You might have been angry I’d gone away without telling you where. My aunt might have lied to you as well.
I thought: He’s forgotten me so soon.
I never got the letters you sent. Not hard to imagine what was done with them. Read and then disposed of, I imagine. How dearly I would love to have those letters back. I feel we are the blood and bone of one person. I love you with your hair grown long. I love you.
Please send me your poems. I hope it is absolutely true that only you collect the mail.
Lovingly,
Linda
P.S. Thank you for the Trzebinski. I read it in a day. Wish I were a slower reader so that books would last longer.
January 10
Dear Linda,
I am in agony thinking that you imagined I had forgotten you.
Never.
If only I had ignored your aunt and kept trying. If only I had called Eileen. If only I had gotten in the car and driven up to Middlebury. I can’t think about this anymore. It is making me ill, literally.
And it is making it hard to enjoy my news, however wonderful it seemed only an hour ago. I received a letter yesterday (it took seven weeks to get here) from an editor at the New Yorker who wants to publish two of my poems. I was in a panic that the editor might have thought I wasn’t interested because it had taken me so long to reply, so I drove into Nairobi and found a telephone and called him straightaway. He was a bit taken aback that I should call all the way from Africa (clearly this was not as important to him as it was to me), but I explained the mail situation. In any event, the poems will be published, and I will actually be paid for them (astonishing in itself). Regina is quite happy about this. I believe she thinks this justifies my existence. So do I, for that matter.
I have other news as well. My embassy official has dropped me a note saying that he plans to put together a party at which several influential people will be (including Mr. Kennedy), and he wonders if I might persuade Mary Ndegwa to come as well. He thinks this is my best chance of promoting her cause, and I was actually cheered to see that the “Ndegwa matter” was still on his mind. (Kennedy will, of course, not remember me, and it will doubtless be embarrassing; but I can’t care about that now.) I don’t have a precise date yet for this event, but when I do, I will let you know.