Mario (LETTERS TO A GENTLEMAN Book 1) by Jamie Lake

Author:Jamie Lake [Lake, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jamie Lake
Published: 2014-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Each day was more excruciating than the last. The weather got hotter and hotter. Summer in Mexico was never a joke, but this time, it felt like the rays sought Mario out and scorched him on purpose, as if punishing him for reaching out in the past and trying to change something that was supposed to have been settled long ago.

He was drained of energy. And it wasn’t just his duties around the house—caring for his mother, who seemed to be getting nominally better with his cousin’s occasional help—nor the endless nights working a double-shift as a janitor to make up for the second job he’d lost. His exhaustion came from a new daily routine that had been established. Every day, at 2:15pm, like clockwork, the ancient mail truck chugged up the road to deliver the mail. And every day, the minute the truck pulled away, Mario would rush outdoors to check on the box, with hope and expectation mounting inside him, daring to imagine that he would find an envelope addressed in Maria’s loopy scrawl.

But, every day, his hopes were dashed. The only mail that ever came was junk mail—catalogs, bills. Mario just stacked all of it on the kitchen table, knowing that his mother would never look at it.

For weeks, Mario ignored the stack of mail, hating the sight of it because it contained no answer from Maria. But finally, he realized he had to take care of the bills, so he sat down at the kitchen table and began opening the envelopes and writing checks. As he went about the mundane task, he found his mind drifting—found himself returning in his imagination to the beautiful vineyard where he and Maria had met. He had been a lowly farm hand, a migrant worker, and she the child of his boss, the vineyard owner. They had spent endless sunny days together: hiding under the bushes, eating grapes, whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears when they thought no one was looking. They’d been through so much together, so much that only they could go through together; hidden behind the hills of those rolling, fragrant green fields, they had discovered each other’s secrets—secrets they’d each hidden from their families for years.

He sighed. It had been nearly three weeks now since he mailed the letter. He was beginning to give up hope. For nearly three weeks, he had been living for that moment in the afternoon when the mail came. But the one-month deadline was creeping closer, and he had heard nothing. Why would Maria even want to write back anyway?

The last day of the month finally arrived. When the mail truck pulled up, he was so distracted that he ran outside without his shoes. As he hobbled along to the mailbox, the hot ground nearly peeling the skin from his feet, his heart was pounding like an African drum. Mario reached the mailbox just as the truck was pulling away. Today was the day that would determine his fate. Today was the deadline he’d set for her to respond.

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