Halfway to You(108)

Your mother believed in my father when no one else did. She gave him all the money you left her so he could start his garage. I know you were angry about this so I’m writing to tell you that the garage was worth the trouble. Its success has brought my family many blessings. My father passed it along to me before he died. It’s my honor to fill his shoes and support my wife and kids with his legacy. I know I’m just a stranger to you, and maybe part of a bad memory too, but I wanted to thank you for your part in making the garage a reality.

Anyways, this was your mom’s copy of Chasing Shadows. I figured you would want it. She was real torn up that she couldn’t make it to your signing. She had just started chemo and it was taking a toll, so Bill went to get it signed. He didn’t tell you who he was on account of not wanting to ruin your big night, but Pam was elated when he brought the book home. She treasured it like nothing else. Bill used to read it to her when she was holed up in the hospital, and she died with it on her lap. She was proud of her daughter. Don’t know if she ever told you that, but now you have the proof.

Take care,

Jeremy Price

It’s strange to suddenly receive everything you’ve wished for, all your life.

Acceptance.

Love.

Pride.

I didn’t know what to do with that stark perspective. All of a sudden, the lens had zoomed way out, and I was Dorothy realizing I’d had all those things all along. Except unlike Dorothy, I couldn’t go home, because home was long gone. Home had died of liver cancer in August 1990.

For years, I’d wondered with disdain why my mother hadn’t seized the opportunity to travel with me rather than criticize me. Now, I understood her courage: She hadn’t run from dissatisfaction and hardship, as I had. She struggled—for years and years—but ultimately, she had faced it. And by facing it, she had found true happiness.

I clutched the book to my chest and didn’t let it go for a long, long while. Tears misted my eyes, and I vowed to write Jeremy back, to thank him for this immeasurable gift. I vowed to do better by the people I loved. To write Keith, to celebrate Carmella’s happiness, and to honor my own legacy by picking up my pen again. I vowed to stop expecting to be disappointed by the people I loved and by myself; to instead expect more—ask for more—so I might live a more fulfilling existence. By my mother’s example, I vowed to stop running and finally face my fears and flaws. If she could transform her life for the better, then maybe there was hope for me too.

After this reflection, I walked straight to my desk. I set my mother’s book upright in front of me, opened my notebook, and began to write.

There’s a reason my new collection is titled Letters I Should Have Written. Not all of them are in true letter form, but most are. It’s a collection of short stories from my travels: all the many letters I should have sent home to my mother, who would’ve loved to live vicariously through her daughter, had her daughter not been too selfish to see the current of love thrumming beneath all that desperate, well-meaning failure.





MAGGIE


For Mom.

—Dedication, Letters I Should Have Written, by Ann Fawkes San Juan Island, Washington State, USA Thursday, February 1, 2024

Maggie brushes her fingers across the advance copy of Ann’s new story collection. The cover is a pale blue, overlaid with embossed lettering in a fine scrawl.

“That’s a close-up of some writing she did in the margins of Chasing Shadows,” Ann says, pointing to details.

“It’s beautiful,” Maggie replies. “I’m sorry she’s not here to see it for herself.”

“Me too,” Ann says. “But I know she’d be proud.”





ANN


San Juan Island, Washington State, USA 2000–2015

I lived a whole lifetime in the years that followed.

Shortly after I received his note, I visited Jeremy. He showed me the garage, and I was blown away by how big an operation it was, with ten employees and a nice lobby. We drove past the home my mother and Bill had purchased together, a modest foursquare with a backyard and a purple mailbox—her favorite color. They didn’t live there long before my mother passed, but I was glad she spent her last years in a proper home.

It was on that trip that I decided to make amends with America. As I walked the suburban streets outside Denver, I gradually realized I had held that grudge out of pain that had nothing to do with the place. A couple walking a golden retriever smiled as they passed. A woman jogging while pushing a stroller offered a quick wave. Cars drove slowly, and nobody seemed loud or abrasive anymore. I’d been searching for home in places when home was in my heart. It was in the people I loved, and in myself.

What would my life have been like had I figured this all out sooner?

Upon my return to Rome, I dove headfirst into being a better friend to Carmella. I reconnected with Bertie, and we dated for a while. I tutored restaurateurs and waiters for free and wrote the rest of my days away.

Then a new opportunity arose: Carmella’s brother-in-law was an American, and his parents had a house in Washington State, on San Juan Island, an island so northerly that they had a view of BC, Canada, off their back porch. They were going to spend the summer in Italy, and they needed a house sitter.

“I like it here, Carmella,” I said when she came to me with the offer.