SHORT FORM FICTION

Dear Mrs. Haywood

A SHORT STORY

Yesterday was mail day and the postman dropped a letter off early morning. When I stepped outside to greet him, he looked at me with pity. I hated it. I still do. Surely, not everyone pities me? I’m not an amputee or a blind paraplegic, I’m a wife, and a proud wife at that. Is it pathetic? Turning the letter over, I yelled in joyful ecstasy. My husband had written to me after too many silent months. I thought I had lost him. We nearly held a mini funeral because some poor tattler by the milk house said we ought to, he said he heard my man was dead. Of course, I didn’t believe him, but I was thankful for the letter because it proved it wasn’t just foolhardy optimism.

The letter was wet, which was odd because it hadn’t rained for several days. I called to the postman, waving the damp paper over my head. He shouted back, saying something had leaked into his bag. It smelt horrific, but it didn’t stop me from opening what was inside.

Written at the top in clear, fashionable cursive were the words Dear Mrs. Haywood. That was unusual, I thought to myself, because Hank started his letters with Dear My Beautiful Wife. Nevertheless, I ran inside and grabbed Charlie, my eight-year-old boy, and we made space by the front window for me to read it aloud to him. I started again. Dear Mrs. Haywood, we are writing to inform… Charlie told me to wait as he ran into the kitchen. Soon afterwards he brought out two mugs of chocolate-flavored milk. He knew it was my favorite.

Are you ready now? I asked him. He nodded. I looked back at the letter and noticed some of the ink had seeped through the damp paper and onto my hand. I postponed the reading as I searched for a tissue to clean myself off. Luckily, from a quick glance, the writing was still mostly legible with a few half-words smudged here and there. Anyways, I sat with my legs crossed, facing Charlie as he stared at me with a wonderful smile. I always loved his smile. It reminded me of his dad’s. Dear Mrs. Haywood, we are writing to inform you that your husband… A knock on the door interrupted the sentence so I placed the letter down on the small table next to me and told Charlie to see who it was.

Mrs. Gleeson, our neighbor, had received a letter that morning too. When Charlie opened the door, she was in tears, weeping into her handkerchief on our doorstep. I ran over and placed my arm across her shoulders, comforting the poor old woman. She had turned sixty-eight not even a week before. Can you imagine being that old? Mrs. Gleeson was likely one of the oldest women in town. I couldn’t picture myself at that age and still in decent enough shape to move around independently. She’s a warrior, but that morning her armor had rattled off her body and the shield she usually bore had collapsed just as she did.

She told me the news and I was devastated. Her husband, who was the commanding sergeant for our county’s regiment, had been shot while patrolling a trench at night. How the enemy saw him in such a dark place, no one knew. They sent a flower in the envelope along with the letter that broke her the news. I offered my mug of chocolate-flavored milk, but she declined, saying she could only stay to tell me her bad tidings, then she’d have to run and hide from the pity before it caught her in the open unarmed and unawares. I said to her that she was welcome whenever she felt like it which seemed to put her in a slightly better mood. Mrs. Gleeson returned home limping from a broken heart, never to recover from her injuries.

As I was watching her walk away, I could hear a shout from inside the front room. I knew Charlie had done something wrong by the fear and desperation in his voice. When I called for him to tell me what had happened, he ordered me to stay outside. Obviously, I didn’t comply, I’m his mother, not his housemaid. What I saw was my little boy with two tea towels wrapped around his hands wiping the table that sat between our chairs. He was apologizing repeatedly, and I soon understood why. My husband’s letter was covered in chocolate-flavored milk, losing all its structure. I tried helping but it was no use, the writing was gone, all that was left was the envelope which I had placed higher up on the shelving by the window.

Picking up the letter, I could only make out a few words: inform, danger, duty, honor. I felt proud, thinking my husband had been awarded a medal for his bravery. And I wasn’t wrong, as a matter of fact. He had been recognized as a hero by his regiment. I could already picture them holding him above their heads and parading him through the streets, showing off their mighty savior, their great and dignified champion.

While I was busy dwelling on the idea of a war hero husband, I missed Charlie voicing some surprise. My trance was broken when he called for me. I turned and told him his dad was a hero. He was thrilled, fantasizing how the other kids at school would react to the news. Picking up the envelope from the shelf, he said to me, well I guess that’s why they sent us the flower too, and my world fell apart.

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