The Measure(18)

He nodded. “Anytime.”

Amie smiled and stepped into Room 204, taking her seat behind a cluttered desk crowned with two notebooks, one tiny cactus (a gift from Nina that was “more practical than flowers”), two empty coffee mugs, a near-empty stapler, and a tabletop calendar with the theme of “banned books” that the history department had given her. May was The Catcher in the Rye, although Amie’s calendar had been open to May ever since April 3, when she decided that too many of her students were asking what Lolita was about.

She placed the sheet of paper atop a small stack of essays, unsure if she should read it.

Amie turned her attention to the day’s grammar lesson on commas and semicolons, but her eyes continued to drift toward the paper until she finally slid it off of the pile and onto the desk in front of her.

Sean told us that we needed to write a letter, so here goes.



A few faint marks after the period betrayed an impatient tapping of the author’s pen.

Carl still thinks this is a stupid exercise and looks like he’s poking holes in his paper with the tip of his pen, to Sean’s dismay. And Chelsea might be drawing something, it’s hard to tell.



Amie didn’t recognize anyone.

Ten minutes is longer than I thought. Plus, it’s been a while since I’ve written a letter like this, with a pen on paper. I feel like one of the soldiers in an epic war drama, hunched over a notepad writing a message to his girl back home.

It actually reminds me of visiting the WWII museum during a road trip down south. They had a bunch of those soldiers’ letters framed on the walls. Of course I spent a good 20 minutes looking at them all, and now I can only remember one. The guy was writing to his mom and asked her to do him a favor and tell Gertrude: “No matter what happens, I still feel the same.”

Not sure why that one stuck with me. Maybe it was the oddness of seeing such a private sentiment displayed so publicly. I almost felt embarrassed to read it. Or maybe it was just the name Gertrude.



Amie was struck with a sudden sense of guilt, reading the thoughts of this stranger. But the letter had been found in her classroom. It had to be written by one of her students, right? Only, she couldn’t think of any of her ten-year-olds writing with this level of self-awareness—or with penmanship that was this neat. And yet it sounded like the author was writing some kind of school assignment? But there were no teachers named Sean that she knew of.

That’s when Amie remembered what a colleague had said last month, that the school would be hosting short-stringer support groups in the evenings and on weekends.

Her stomach tightened as she realized what she had just read, and she felt a surge of pity for the writer, whose words must have been coaxed out of him as some form of therapy.

As she continued to grip the edges of the paper, uncertain what to do with it, Amie turned her thoughts to Gertrude. It was easier to think of a name in a distant museum than the short-stringer who had sat in her classroom mere hours ago and left this letter behind. So, instead, she imagined Gertrude and her sweetheart at war, like Atonement’s Cecilia and Robbie, the poor woman anxiously checking her mail for the tear-stained missives from a boy on a ship somewhere. No matter what happens, he still feels the same.





Ben




A week later, on Sunday evening, just before the session started, Maura pointed it out to Ben: the sheet of yellow loose-leaf, folded neatly in a square and placed on the floor beside the bookshelf in Room 204. There was an etching of the New York skyline on the page facing up.

“Isn’t that yours?” Maura asked.

“Oh wow, yeah,” Ben said. “I was wondering if I dropped it somewhere. What are the odds that it’s been here this whole time, and nobody threw it out?”

Maura seemed just as surprised. “Maybe they saw the drawing and thought someone might come back for it. You’re actually quite talented.”

“Actually?” Ben laughed, and Maura smiled as she pulled out her chair.

Ben slid the paper into the pocket of his jeans, and it wasn’t until he arrived home, after the session, that he finally opened it up to reread it.

Underneath his original letter, something else had been written.

A response.

Did you ever learn what happened to Gertrude and the soldier? I only ask because I’ve been thinking about them a lot, and I’ve grown curious about the actual meaning of his words.

At first, I interpreted his letter as the ultimate romantic promise—that no matter what happened to him in the war, his love for Gertrude would never fade. But what if that’s not right? Since I haven’t read the letter in full, I can’t say for certain, but if he truly just wrote, “No matter what happens, I still feel the same,” then maybe his words meant the exact opposite? Maybe he had already rejected the poor Gertrude, and no matter what physical and emotional horrors he would face, his feelings would not change. He still wouldn’t love her the way she loved him. And he needed to call upon his mother as a conduit because he didn’t have the courage to tell Gertrude himself.

Of course, this is just my wild conjecture (and perhaps I should be concerned that I am searching for sadness in what is most likely a beautiful expression of love?), but I would be curious to hear if you know anything else about Gertrude and her soldier.

—A