Letters to Amelia by Lindsay Zier-Vogel

Author:Lindsay Zier-Vogel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book*hug Press
Published: 2021-07-10T01:10:50+00:00

20

In the morning, Grace can hear her dad putting coffee on in the kitchen. She’s afraid of gagging at the smell, so she stays upstairs a little longer. It’s still dark out, the sun slow to rise, the sky a dark, impatient blue. She hears her mom tiptoe past her room, and she finds one of her dad’s old fire hall sweatshirts.

She pulls out her phone. She shouldn’t have, but she took photos of a few letters before the library closed for the holidays.

Dear Gene,

I can usually let all the gossip and tall tales about me slide off my back, but the one that always gets under my skin is that I’m mean to Pidge and Mother—that I’m bossy and mean and stingy. I know that I can be bossy with both of them, but they can be like chickens running around with their heads cut off, all in a flap about god knows what.

Not to mention that Mother is terrible with money—she lost her entire inheritance, partly because of my dad drinking it away, and then she invested in a gypsum mine that went belly up, and that was the end of that. She came from money but has never been able to hang on to it, so yes, of course I help her out, but I also have to tell her what to spend it on or it’ll be gone in a wink.

And Pidge, poor Pidge. She went to more schools than I did (and she actually graduated, where I could never quite stick around long enough). She’s so well read and could do anything she wanted to, but she saddled herself to Al and is now stuck with the kids up in Medford (Deadford, ha ha). She’s reliving my mother’s life all over again, complete with the husband who goes through money like water. How could she not see that coming? I could all the way from Boston. So, of course I said something before they got hitched. How could I not? But that was because I’m a good sister, because I love her, not because I was being mean or vengeful.

Some days when she’s complaining about how hard things are, I want to write her back that this is the bed she’s made, but I don’t. Instead, I send money, and send toys for the kids. I offer to host them here at Rye, but they never come. Ever. Mother goes to Marblehead with Pidge and the kids, but won’t stop in for even a quick hello.

I feel like it all may have started around my Friendship flight when reporters showed up in Medford and started hounding Mother and she insisted I wasn’t flying across the Atlantic because I hadn’t told her, and she was furious that she was the last to know. But if I had told her, all of the eastern seaboard would’ve known. Maybe she’s holding a grudge, or maybe she’s still angry that GP and I both have told her to stop talking to reporters.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.