Rose Thorns & Love Letters

40 ➪ Love, Nellie

•Camilla•

1887
Dear Lancey,
When I was young, I always hoped for a love as tender as yours. My heart belongs to you. In every which way possible. I am a woman. I cannot make my own decisions. You must profess your love for me in the presence of my husband. I should hope that he will listen.
Love, Nellie

_________________

Her back is faced towards to me but by the tiny birthmark stamped on the back of her neck revealed by the loose bun plopped on her head, the sound of her soothing voice and the phone pressed to her ear, I know it is her.

"Try again." She says so low I can only hear it through the phone call we are still on. My brows screw. My mother is right in front of me. Whatever could she mean by Try again.

Memories of nights spent with my mother rush in. Us laying in my childhood bed and pointing up at stars on my childhood bedroom ceiling. It was what she told me at the time. She told me they were stars and I wholeheartedly believed her.

It is only now that I have matured that I have realized that they were not in fact stars. Only the reflection the moon casted upon the dazzling mini chandelier my father installed for my seventh birthday, courtesy of my mother.

I remember a specific night. Summer of 2012. My mother merely mentioned my grandmother but I was so intrigued about my her and her mother's relationship. I had never met the woman, I was told that she died in a car accident when I was only two, but I could only dream of the relationship she had with my mother.

"Mommy, were you and Grandma close?"

"Yes, baby."

"Why?"

She giggles and pulls at my cheek. "Well for the same reason you and I are close. Let me tell you a secret." Her voice drops and she beckons me over so that she can whisper in my ear. I suppress a small giggle and shift in the bed so that I am close enough for my mother's liking.

"My mother always told me that even though I was her daughter, I may as well have been her twin. You know what a twin is?" I nod my head but the expression on my face begs to differ. My mother's face breaks out into a smile before she explains.

"A twin is someone you are born with. Someone you are tied to for life. Well, she always said we were twins because look—" My mother sits up in the bed and pulls her hair over her shoulder.

"We had the same exact birthmark."

I blink myself back into reality and I immediately wish I could go back. There is no possibility that—

"Grandma?" I whisper and simultaneously, she turns around revealing her slightly aged skin. She does not look a day over 65 and for that reason, my mother is a carbon coby of her. I would have believed it was my mother with a few more years on her had it not been for my grandma's strikingly blue eyes in contrast to my mother's hazel ones.

"You are so beautiful." She whispers. I am not sure whether I was supposed to hear it, but nonetheless, I do. I am unsure whether she is saying it to convince herself that I am really there, or to truly compliment me.