Love Letter

Lynne:

The date was everything, if not more than I could have dreamed of. Tonight had to be a figment of my imagination. It was sad to admit that it was my first actual date at 22. I had been on dates, but nothing was like tonight. I really wouldn't consider meeting at a Starbucks for supper on a date. Or casually hinting to go bowling, but nothing came after bowling, not a follow update, not even a movie. I was glad that my first one held such high standards for any other dates I would go on. I had always seen dates as meet and greet things with nothing special. I would follow most of the lacking dates I had with reading a romance novel or watching Pride and Prejudice. Looking up to see Ian standing there watching me skate was one of the picture moments I would never forget in my life. Ian would always have a special place in my life, just after one night. But what really melted my heart was seeing my family together and celebrating Christmas. There were plenty of times last night when I had goosebumps and forgot how much fun it was to hope during the holidays. Of course, Meredith, I mean my scornful mother, had to put a damper on it at the end. I knew she meant to ruin it – but it wasn't ruined at all.

I was lying on my single mattress bed. All of my siblings had a king-size in their rooms, but I was never a fan of having all the open space on the mattress. It just always felt too big when I had mine. So I downgraded to a single – which was good since when I moved to New York, the only thing that would fit in my room was a single with a dresser. Lisa and Kelly walked in with no knock on the door with a glimmer in their eyes. They were feeling good from the eggnog drinks, I suspected, or the holiday cheer.

"Hey, baby sis," Kelly said, flopping down against the wall pushing me to the middle of the bed. Lisa laid down on my right, and I knew what was coming.

"Lynne sandwich," they both yelled, hugging me from both sides. They were way too hyper for me right now. I was processing.

"Why," I ask, not sounding upset at all but more of a whining tone coming out. I try to repress my thoughts as much as possible for my mother. When I was younger, and my sisters wanted to cheer me up, there was always a Lynne sandwich around the corner. It was embarrassing, but when I was younger, I was used to being embarrassed at school by classmates and at home by my own mother. So it really was not that bad.

"So, how was it?" Kelly asked.

I took a moment to describe it as best as I could. "I don't think anything could ever beat this date." I go through the whole date, not leaving out any details this time. I cringe when I tell them about his second and third date comment since I was still reaming from that.

"It is so unfair – you met him on a bus. I need to start using the bus when I come to see you." Kelly pouts. I woke up later that night still surrounded by both sisters on each side of me. I scramble myself out of their embrace and make my way to the kitchen.

I stop and regret my decision when I step in and see my mom in the kitchen. She looked up and saw me before I could rush back upstairs.

"Lynne," she says with a glint in her eye, and I'm wondering if it is because she is happy or wasted from the wine. "Tonight was fun," she says like she forgot about her public outbreak causing the night to end. I was leaning toward the ladder with the wine. Happy mother always meant a lot of wine.

"Yeah, it was," I say. There was no reason to start a fight this late, and there was no leaving now, so I grabbed a bowl of cereal and milk. Until this point, I hadn't even realized that I did not have any food on my date. I filed it away so I could use that realization later.

"I'm glad to have you home," my mom says, looking at me, and I look down at the counter. Not knowing what to say or how to feel about this. I wanted to say, "I'm glad to be home, but it is not because of you. After everything happened to me, you just left me like I was a piece of garbage... Like I had died just like dad had." but I don't I keep my thoughts to myself. I had always wondered if my mother wished I was dead. Because if I thought my conversations with Keith were rare to come across, then phone conversations with my mother were near extinct. So having a heart-to-heart moment with her was more than a little hard to embrace. I knew that being back home was more comfortable than I was expecting. Still, I did not know if that was the effect of Ian being around or because I genuinely felt that. "Follow me," my mom says as she turns to lead down to the hall of what all of us kids called her wing. They had a master suite on this side of the house and two offices. The one used to be my dad's, and the other one was my mom's for all the parties and fundraisers she had used to help with.

I expect her to walk into her office but am a little off-center when she unlocks my dad's old office and we are stepping inside it. My dad had been gone a long time, but it was like stepping into a time warp since everything was exactly as I remembered it. His reading glasses were still sitting on the desk as if he was just in here today reading. A sweater I remember seeing him wear is thrown across the couch, and newspapers are stacked in the corner. He never threw any of them out. I got goosebumps looking around it. There was no dust on the desk, which meant Francine cleaned it regularly. My mom takes in my face and tries to explain or justify what I see. "This is my office now – it didn't feel right to change any of it" she pats the couch for me to sit down. I make sure the sweater does not bump me; I do not want to disturb any of it. She walks to the closet and pulls out a box with a bow on it. She walks back over to me and drops the box right in front of me.

I open the box, not knowing what to expect. I was thinking maybe a bunch of new clothes so my mother could tell me how bad my clothes were that I had been wearing. My other horrific idea is that she has bought razor blades in bulk to give to me; I push this thought aside quickly. But all these thoughts were wrong when I opened the box to a handful of books. They were neatly stacked in two rows of six. Twelve books were facing me. I was expecting them to be a set of some sort but found that they were all different. My first thought is that my wicked mother had been hiding these from me; dad had these picked out for me before he died and held on to them to give to me.

"What is this?" I ask, angry.

"Your gift, or I should say your gifts throughout the years. Your dad was not the only one to leave you books throughout the years." She says, and I try grasping onto what she was saying. The books on the bed were always my and dad's thing; she did not tell me one was from her. She continues, "It was tough to be around you after he had passed. And I know there is no excuse for how I treated you. Especially your senior year when you needed me the most, but... You were the most like him. You still are. I can see him every time I look at you." Tears were sliding down her face. Tears were something I rarely saw on my mother's face; panic and crazy were what I was used to seeing in her eyes. "He would be so ashamed to see how I was with you kids after his death. I am so ashamed." I couldn't refute that she was horrible and should be ashamed, but I had never felt true love like my mother had with my father. I do not know what it was like to lose that one person you had planned to sleep next to for the rest of your life. I didn't know what it felt like to wake up one day, and they are gone, and then the next day comes, and it hits you all over again. I did what I thought would be best. Instead of talking, I embraced my mother. Bringing in her frail body against me, trying to hold onto this moment – I didn't know if it would be fleeting or if this would point in the right direction to mending our relationship that had been broken for so long.

"I love you, mom," I say as a tear slips down my face.

She lets go, not repeating the words I had just spoken.