"Ma'am, where do you want me to put this?"
A teenage boy tapped on a woman's shoulder. In his sweat-covered face, there was a grin and eyes full of energy. He was carrying a box full of books. The woman smiled back at him. She suddenly remembered her son who was currently staying with his father in another corner of the world. It had been four days since she had spoken to him and she missed the sound of his voice. Maybe I should call him after I'm done with all of this, she thought.
"I would thank you if you could put them beside the TV table." the woman answered the boy and pointed to a space where the large TV was attached to a wall. As a sign that the boy understood what the woman meant, he nodded and started walking toward the direction the woman had pointed.
Today was a big day for the woman because it was the first day of her new life in her new home. It was an old and simple but warm house. A humble two-floor with a wood interior and a stone exterior. Moreover, there is also a little garden in both the front and back of the house. I should plant flowers in the front and vegetables in the back, she thought again to herself.
It was a fresh start for the woman after many years, so she felt like she could finally do anything she wanted to do. After divorcing a man she has loved for twenty two years, this time, she planned to focus on herself and not to worry about what others would have wanted. Although sometimes the woman did wish that her son could be here with her to experience this new chapter of her life.
Her feet were light as she walked around the house. A cry from the old wood floors can be heard in her every step. There is one room that she was most curious about and always wanted to open when she first found this house. The attic. In the description of the house, it said that the attic has many pieces of artwork and other stuff belonging to the previous owner, Adam Rogue. The very name sent thrills through her. Adam Rogue was not just any homeowner. He was a famous and incredible author. He wrote many of the woman's favorite books and poems. She had been excited to know this fact and felt as though she just won the lottery. This must be a divorce woman's luck, the woman mused herself.
The attic can be accessed through a spiral staircase on the second floor. The stairs were made from iron and they were aged with rust but still strong enough to handle the woman's weight. The attic door creaked as she opened it. Dust and darkness roaming around the room. The woman tried to find a switch for the light but her attempts kept failing. With a sigh, she took her phone from her back pocket and turned on the flashlight.
It turns out there was no light switch, instead, there was only an old-fashioned lamp that turned on only if you pulled the string attached to it. This is definitely an old house, the woman murmured to herself. When the light flickered on, the things she hoped for when she bought this house were arranged neatly around the room. There were paintings, vases, old cassettes and DVDs, music records, and an assortment of boxes containing what seemed to be letters and notebooks. The woman grinning in happiness. Could these be Adam Rogue's unpublished works?, the thought sent an excitement through her. She always wanted to read the unpublished works of his and these boxes full of letters and notebooks must be it.
She started rummaging through the boxes of the letters and notebooks. Among the boxes, the woman spotted something unusual. It was a small rectangle box with a red colour which was different from others. The woman grabbed it and the red box felt light. There's a handwriting on its lid that says For the last time. She ran her fingers through that inscription and curiosity started to creep into her thoughts.
With a soft click, the woman opened the red box and found a black envelope inside. Its condition was flawless, probably because it was protected by its special box. There was no name, address or any information about what kind of letter on the envelope. Interesting, the woman thought to herself. She placed the envelope back into the box. She turned off the attic's lamp and closed the door while holding the red box in her left hand.
There's a lot of chatter and the sound of things being moved around in the first floor, so she decided to read this particular letter in the master's bedroom near the spiral staircase. The bedroom still looks empty with a few boxes scattered around the space and a bed frame standing in the center of the room. The woman sat down on the floor, leaning against a wall. With a click, she opened the mysterious red box again and now the black envelope rested on her lap. Taking a deep breath, she slipped a finger under the flap and carefully opened it.
My inestimable beloved,
It has been a while since I wrote you a letter. I hope you forgive me for I am still finding my standing in this cold, barren earth without a light to move forward. It is March now and I had felt nothing since April last year. In here, I am unmoving like a broken doll. Unfortunately, again, I do not know how to withstand the hunger to break, to crush, to ruin, and pick apart my entire being. Every thought, every decision, every action is tangled in the suffocating realization of what I did, what I could have done, and what I lost. However, time after time, the shadow of your existence tried to remind me that I had no responsibility for what had happened to me since I took that gulp of air and roared my tiny lungs. Still, I am a moth to destruction. My destiny will bring me doom, just like I had brought yours.
Precisely like the rain that has been pouring unstoppably on this dry ground, you have washed away my inescapable sadness. Hence, the blue in me started to melt away like the ice in tea we drank on that wonderful afternoon. And for I am still here, wandering in this wondrous earth, only you will be the reason on why I live. One of the true reasons why I exist. That is why, in these past few months, I have been questioning myself. If you are no longer here, why am I still able to breathe, to think, to feel, and be able to exist at all?
It is known to the world that I am fond of writing lies in my poetry, but you still love to read them as though they were the truest words ever written. Oh my inestimable beloved! Understand is such a hard word to comprehend when it comes to the things that you do only for me.
I do not know what I have to do when you have your fingers in every single fold of my brain, holding and caressing them sweetly as you could. The act itself made me truly so soft that sometimes I forget that I am currently suffering. What if the many truths that I had drowned in the past resurfaced and punched me in the face? Will I have the strength to fight them back? It terrifies me truly. The thought of being alone, without you.
My sea, my land, my sky, My love, my rage, my pain, All my grief and longing.
They all burn within me, I can feel them in my boiling blood. If only your warm eyes could envelop me once more, then I will not be afraid of what comes next. Even if it is death. As a matter of fact, if I took this tired soul out of my broken body and embraced death, don't you think we can be reunited again once more?
It is March now and I have been missing you since April last year. How could I live with myself now, apart from you, the only light in my life? I know it well that the seasons will change and the world will keep moving, but should I truly remain in this threshold, where time refuses to touch me? Tell me, my beloved, am I meant to endure this existence without you? You were my ground, my place to land. If you were to crumble, then where do I stand? I wish nothing more than to be with you instead of asking these questions.
With a heavy heart that is full of longing, AR.
After she finished reading the letter, the woman sat still for a while. She traced the words in the letter, trying to etch every word into her mind. This must have been the letter Adam Rogue wrote to his wife before he died. His wife died eleven months earlier before he finally took his last breath. It was a known fact that Adam was having a hard time in those months after he lost her and he desperately wished for nothing more than to be reunited with her. The familiar ache in her chest started to bloom. This time, the woman was reminded by her husband.
Twenty two years was a long time, at least for her. Although the divorce had been painful, she was hopeful of the unlimited new beginnings. That was why she was determined to move forward. Yet, as her eyes lingered on the letter, she could not help but be pulled back into the past. The past of quiet comfort of knowing she had once been loved just as Adam Rogue had loved his wife.
The woman placed back the letter into the black envelope. She tucked it into the red box and closed the lid with a soft click. Perhaps some memories were meant to be revisited, but not lived in. She was sure of it. With one last lingering look, the woman whispered, perhaps to herself, "Goodbye, beloved."