Chapter 9 - The Letters in the Box
September came with two weeks of high, cold wind that stripped the leaves off the silver maples along the lane and dropped them into the driveway like handfuls of yellow paper.
The lake turned gray—a hard, iron gray that didn't show the sky anymore.
I spent my mornings in the orchard behind the house.
There were twelve trees left from the sixty Thomas had planted in seventy-four—mostly Northern Spies and two Wealthy trees that were half-dead from the rust. I picked the fruit myself, using the three-step wooden ladder and a canvas bag tied around my waist with a piece of binder twine.
The apples were small this year, sour and hard, but good for sauce if you used enough sugar and a pinch of nutmeg.
On the third Tuesday of September, the mailman—old man Gary, who had been driving the rural route since seventy-six—pulled his red Jeep up to my tin box.
He didn't just leave the mail. He blew his horn twice—honk-honk—a short, polite sound that meant there was something that wouldn't fit into the box.
I walked down the lane in my green rubber boots and my wool sweater.
Gary handed me a thick white envelope through his window.
"From Lansing, Margaret," Gary said. He had his blue wool cap pulled down over his ears because of the wind. "Looked like court papers. The girl at the post office said it came by registered mail."
"Thanks, Gary," I said.
I didn't open it at the mailbox. I carried it back to the house, laid it on the yellow linoleum table, and made my tea.
When the tea was brewed, I took my small silver letter opener—the one with the horse-head handle—and cut the top edge clean.
There were three letters inside.
The first was from a law office on Michigan Avenue in Lansing—Snyder, Cole & Associates.
It said that Mr. Arthur Vance had retained their services to inquire about "the mental capacity of Mrs. Margaret Vance at the time of the execution of the township trust." It asked for a "voluntary psychological evaluation at the Michigan State Medical Center" within fourteen days to "resolve the matter without formal litigation."
I laid it on the table.
The second letter was from Brenda.
It was written on three sheets of lined yellow pad paper, using a purple felt-tip pen that had bled through the paper in little round spots like dry grape juice.
Dear Margaret, it began.
I am writing this because Arthur is too sick to write. He has been in bed for three days with a severe lung infection from standing out in the cold on your porch all night. He can barely breathe. We are living in a two-room place near the rail yards that smells like old cabbage. Caleb had to drop out of his track team because we couldn't pay the equipment fee. Brody isn't sleeping. He keeps asking why his grandmother hates him.
You are a Christian woman, Margaret. You go to the Methodist church every Sunday. How can you sit in that big house with four bedrooms while your own blood is living on fried bread and lard? If Thomas were alive today he would be ashamed of you. He was a good man who cared about his family.
We are willing to forget what happened on the dock if you come into town, sign the trust back over to Arthur, and give us five thousand dollars for the back rent and Arthur's medical bills. If you don't, Mr. Snyder says we can take the house anyway because of your age.
Sincerely, Brenda.
I laid Brenda's letter beside the lawyer's letter.
The third sheet was a small square of lined paper from a school notebook.
It was in Caleb's handwriting—small, messy letters that leaned every which way, written with a pencil that had been pressed so hard it had torn through the paper in three places.
Grandma, it said.
I didn't mean to push you. I thought you'd just jump back like you did at the creek when we were little. I didn't know you couldn't get out. Mom said to say it was a joke so we wouldn't get in trouble with the lake patrol.
I lost my track shoes anyway. Brody took 'em and sold 'em to a boy at the flats for ten dollars so he could buy cigarettes.
Can I come back and cut the grass for you this fall? I don't need any money. I just want to sleep in the back room where the pine trees are.
Caleb.
I sat at the kitchen table for thirty minutes.
The tea in my ceramic mug went cold, a thin brown skin forming over the top like ice on a puddle.
I picked up Caleb's note.
I read it twice. Then I looked at the letter opener with the horse-head handle.
I picked up the three letters.
I walked into the living room.
I opened the iron door of the parlor stove—the heavy cast-iron stove that Thomas had installed in eighty-four to save on the fuel oil bill.
There were two dry oak logs inside, half-burned from the night before, with a bed of gray ash underneath.
I took the lawyer's letter first.
I folded it twice, pushed it into the gray ash near the air draft, and lit the edge with a long wooden match. The white paper caught instantly, turning yellow, then black, then curling into a thin gray leaf that floated up the iron pipe.
I took Brenda's letter.
I didn't read it again. I shoved it into the flame behind the lawyer's letter. The yellow paper burned fast, with a bright purple spark where the felt-tip ink caught the fire.
I looked at Caleb's note.
I held it in my fingers for ten seconds.
The fire from Brenda's letter was reaching out toward my knuckles—a tiny yellow tongue that smelled of dry wood and old ink.
I dropped Caleb's note into the center of the flame.
It turned gray in three seconds.
I closed the iron door of the stove. I turned the brass air wheel on the front until it was half-closed, cutting the draft down to a quiet, steady hiss.
I went back to the kitchen.
I picked up my pen—the blue ink pen from the bank that Earl had left on my blotter—and a fresh white postcard.
I wrote on the back:
To: Mr. Caleb Vance. c/o General Delivery, Lansing Main Post Office.
Caleb,
The grass is cut for the season. The mower is in the garage and the key is at the sheriff's office. If you want to work, Mr. Miller down at the boat slip needs someone to stack five cords of oak before the first snow. He pays eight dollars an hour.
Do not write to this house again.
Margaret Vance.
I walked out to the lane and put the postcard into the blue tin box.
May you like
I didn't lift the red flag.
The flag was rusted shut anyway—stuck in the down position since seventy-nine, when a milk truck had backed into the post and bent the iron arm into the zinc.
