Forty
August 5, 1958
Dear Emmy,
I am trying very hard to do what I said I would do—and that is live with the fact that the brides box is gone. I told Dr. Diamant before I started looking that I would be okay with not finding it. I told Simon the same thing.
Simon said this evening he wished he had talked me out of looking.
But then I would always wonder, I said.
And he said sometimes wondering is better than knowing.
Dr. Diamant told me truth is a strange companion. It devastates one moment and enthralls the next. But it never deceives. And because of that, in the end, it comforts.
Julia
August 7, 1958
Dear Emmy,
I think we might be done here.
Simon thinks it might be a good idea to lay you to rest. He wonders if maybe I could use this journal to memorialize you. I could burn it, and its ashes could be your remains. He read in an article that people who grieve the loss of a loved one where there is no body often need something to burn or bury to find ultimate release. That’s how we say good-bye to people. We clasp them to our chest, weep over their lifeless form, and then send them back to the earth.
I could do that with this journal.
I need to ask Dr. Diamant what she thinks.
Julia
August 11, 1958
Dear Emmy,
Dr. Diamant says the journal is mine to do with as I want. The journal has always been more about me than you. Isn’t that funny? Here I am writing all these words to you, words you will never read. And it’s not a problem because the journal has always been for me.
I don’t think I can toss this into the fireplace.
Not yet, anyway.
But I think I can be finished with writing in it.
We are done, aren’t we, Emmy? I did all that I could to find you, all that I could to restore to you what I took from you.
Dr. Diamant assures me that with all that I have told her about you, you would have forgiven me. That you did forgive me.
I think maybe if we end it here, perhaps I can learn to believe it. Maybe not as quickly as Simon would like, but if I know anything about time, it is that it stretches to walk with you when you grieve. The rest of the world may zoom past at breakneck speed, but when you are learning to live with loss, time slows to the pace of your breathing.
I will never forget you, Emmy.
But I need to release you.
Your sister always,
Julia
August 15, 1958
Emmy,
I can hardly believe what has happened.
Gwen found the brides box.
She found it.
In Rose’s old room.
She called me this morning as I was getting ready for work.
I am stunned beyond words.
She wants to meet me in Stow to give it to me. I don’t even care that she doesn’t want me to come back to Thistle House.
I have called in sick to work. I begged Simon to let me use his car.
He wants to come with me but I told him no. We can’t both call in sick.
And I want to go alone.
Emmy, after all this time. I am bringing home your brides box.