The Correspondent: A Novel by Virginia Evans - 45

Sybil Van Antwerp

17 Farney Rd.

Arnold, MD 21012

21 October 2017

To Ms. Van Antwerp,

I couldn’t see how you knew it was me writing when I never left my information. I thought about it for a long time, it drove me crazy, and then I see it’s simple. You remembered. You expected hearing from me. That surprised me really.

I have letters you sent my father, Enzo Martinelli, when he was in prison after sentencing in 1981 by Judge Guy Donnelly in Frederick Maryland. I found the letters years ago in my early twenties pressed in back of a drawer in a bureau and I could not understand, who was this woman writing to him in prison, and did he write back? When I read the obituary for Judge Donnelly in 2012 your name was there and I was dazed because I remembered you. You know some memories you have you wonder was it a dream? I googled you and saw your face and the horrible thing I wondered was maybe a memory of a bad dream, this turned cleared up. My mother was dragging my brother and me on the bus down to the courthouse when she knew the judge is would be out—she told us this. Her name is Florencia. She said he is at his lunchtime. How did she know that? It was a hot, sunny day. I remember the long desk and a painting of a carnivale behind you. I was embarrassed with my mother crying. I had not seen this before then and I didn’t see her cry again for many years later. We were learning English. My mother had a difficult time. It embarrassed me she tripped over her words mixing Italian and English, begging you and crying. She admitted my father made a wrongdoing had done wrong! I was proud of the bread truck he drove Pepperidge Farm Bread written along the side and his clothes always smelled like yeast. He went out again after we went to bed—my brother and me shared a small bed in the corner of our apartment with roaches and mice, and he filled the bread truck with other things for men who paid more money for his service. Of course it was against his contract, of course some things he put in the truck were against the law. My mother knew this—she is keen, she admitted this wrong, and she begged you. We had nothing– my parents coming from Italy with nothing, and my father wanted was ambitious. He tried to make a life for us, pay for school uniforms and tutors, to take us to college, wear fine clothes, go to a good school, these things. My father was full of dreams. What he did to use the truck was not good, but there was no harm to anyone and those things he delivered they would be delivered with him or someone else if it was not him, this is what my mother was pleading. My father was not choosing the the big man. She told you if my father went to prison our family would not survive.

Your eyes were cold and dead. Cruel. But I saw a photograph of children on your desk. I did not understand—were you a mother? I thought you were an evil witch. I remember. But maybe I see now you remember too, and that surprised me. You said for me say what I needed to say. For my life I have hated you. You grew into an enormous thing in my mind. It surprised me driving to your home. It is a pretty house and you look out to the water. It is not very large but must be expensive. I know about real estate. I saw you in the window sitting at a desk. I was watching you for a long time. How tiny you are, and you had a mailbox in the shape of a fish and a wreath on the door, these nice things. I hated you for such a long time, but you were just a small old woman and I was lost. I didn’t know what to do so I cut the flowers. This didn’t help.

Dezi Martinelli