The Correspondent: A Novel by Virginia Evans - 54

Rosalie Van Antwerp

33 Orange Lane

Goshen, CT 06756

September 18, 2018

Dear Rosalie,

I am writing to put an end to the long silence. I’m calling this week my parade of apologies, so you can exhale and read on with smug confidence (not that you will; you’re not like me).

Before I get to that, though, I wanted to ask you—in a letter quite a while back you mentioned putting Lars in a home. Greenmont Village. Have you done so over the course of my distance? I am sick over the thought that you may have done during these many weeks we haven’t spoken. The conflict you feel, or felt, is awful awful. You said it feels like giving up, but it is not. You are not aspiring to a dream; you are trying to survive. You are trying to outwit the challenges that have tried their damnedest to topple you. I wanted to say that to you, first and foremost.

Things boiled over with Fiona, as they were always destined to, I see now, in hindsight. It’s true what they say about hindsight. We were talking on the phone, it was about a week ago now, and I had mentioned not seeing her in some time, and she positively exploded, went into a diatribe of her grievances against me like the projectile innards of a dirty bomb. I retaliated with the intel I’ve harbored of her visit to you, and that backfired because she said she already knew I knew. It was terrible, but in my head, as she unleashed, was the letter you sent last summer and for the first time since reading it I felt not hurt by you, but loved. Under direct fire from Fiona, I sat in the kitchen and wished beyond comprehension that you were sitting there across from me, hearing the conversation, urging me forward. Oh, I said some terrible things right back, in the heat of that moment, but after the phone call I went into hibernation for a few days to have a long sit and think. I reread your letter and this whole thing slowly turned over, like a fat whale on a beach, FLOP, and then I had clarity. I wrote to Fiona. Obviously it was a letter to apologize, but I also flayed myself open like a caught fish. I mailed the letter yesterday, and now I’m fretting.

All right, now here it is, Rosalie, I might as well get on with it, the reason I’m writing today. I AM SORRY. I was angry with you unjustly. Please forgive me. I lost months—not months, a year or more! God save me—of confiding in you because of my blindness, and I wasn’t present for you in a difficult time, and everything you said to me regarding Fiona was a blunt kindness, but I let my stubbornness override my allegiance to you. I can’t take it back, but I want to say that I see my error—I am seeing so clearly! Isn’t it ironic?—and I am so very, very sorry, Rosalie. Please take me back. Please write to me and tell me everything. How you are, and Paul, and Lars. You are an unassailable and miraculous creature, Rosalie. I hope you’ll take me back. I can’t do it without you.

All right, now that’s done, thank God.

Other things have happened of which I would like you to be aware. Mick Watts proposed formally and wants to sweep me away to Texas. Stewart cheated on Felix, so they broke up and Felix is in Los Angeles and doing poorly. Things came to a head with the dean of English at UMDCP, the result of which is that we became friends and I am taking a poetry course. I will also need to talk to you on the phone to tell you about another very strange, complex, horrible thing that has happened over the course of the past few years related to a case Guy heard in the seventies. Lastly, I have heard nothing from Hattie Gleason in some time. That’s all.

Write me,

Sybil

Postscript: I am reading with greater difficulty now. Trying to get through Pride and Prejudice one more time. Sometimes I can see enough to write; for instance, today it’s rather clear, and sometimes it’s nearly impossible. I thought when I started to lose my sight in this way, when it actually began to slip away, I would cling to it with all my might, but that isn’t the way I feel now. Now that it’s become such a strain, I almost find myself ready to let it go. Not totally, and you know I might go back on that tomorrow, but today that is how I feel.