write once a day even when she could barely ï¬ll the pen. Ten days! How shehated having to depend upon him for her happiness. It wasnât fair. Or right. She couldnât make him write to her. She couldnât make him want to. When she thought about her helplessness, anger rose in her like lava, burning her heart, her throat, her words.
Valentineâs Day came and went.
What was the matter with him, anyway? Here she was, a pitiable object, surely, to any feeling person. The postman came and went, came and went without anything for her day after day after day, until she couldnât bear the rejection any longer. She wrote the letter with the molten words that, given some of the things she said, he would construe as angry. She had written in a passionate fury, when she knew if she didnât do something sheâd explode, at either Ruby or her mother. Sheâd slammed the door to her room and picked up a pen instead. Heat and power surged through her veins as she found her stride. How wonderful it felt to let the words gush from her completely unrestrained! Sheâd written an entire aerogram of tiny writing in half an hour. She had held nothing back, wrote direct from her heart and her head, and the two together reinforced her.
Her wretched situation was all his fault, she told him, for not writing her more often and for making such feeble attempts when he did. Was he afraid the censor might think he loved his wife if he wrote more than one special term of endearment in the salutation? She had begged him and begged him to write more often, and he had not. Why didnât she matter to him? Had he stopped loving her? If he had done what he was supposed to do, none of this would ever have happened and she would behappy for a change and all her letters to him would be sweet. She did matter, for his information.
She shouldnât have mailed it and she knew she shouldnât have mailed it. Sheâd ignored the cautioning voice in her head and made herself drop the letter in the box. Maybe she should have torn it up. But no: it was important to let him know what she was going through, because it at least gave him the opportunity to respond. And she did not hold with the notion some people had that when man and wife are far apart, some pieces of news would be better withheld, including, she supposed, the mental state of that wife. (Sometimes she wondered if she needed a psychiatrist. Should her husband know that? Yes. Especially when he was a doctor.) There was nothing to be gained by pretending that things were different than they actually were. It wasnât honest or useful, while even the exercise of pouring out misery in a few thousand words on paper could be of help, both to the person writing and to the intended recipient. She had felt so much better after writing. No, Tom would always get the straight goods from her. He might be in the war, but she wasnât going to deny the difï¬culties she was facing.
She looked sadly at herself in the mirror. She was angry yesterday, not today. Today she missed her darling husband with all her heart; loved him; longed for him. The only annoyance today so far was that sheâd woken up with her period. Well, at least she wasnât pregnant. Odd, but with the onset of her menses she felt herself returning to a kind of calm, stability, after what she only now recognized as an emotional rather than rational state. It had happened before.
After Ruby was in bed that night, she wrote him again.
My Dearest Love,
I miss you so much tonight. I literally ache to have you near. I am inï¬nitely wretched for every mile that separates us, and yet I am happy too, because I recognize myself tonight. The volcano has subsided and I am serene in the one thought, that I love you. I love you dearâad inï¬nitum. I want you to know that I am weeping mental tears of anguish when I recall the awful letter which will have reached you recently. I donât
Valentineâs Day came and went.
What was the matter with him, anyway? Here she was, a pitiable object, surely, to any feeling person. The postman came and went, came and went without anything for her day after day after day, until she couldnât bear the rejection any longer. She wrote the letter with the molten words that, given some of the things she said, he would construe as angry. She had written in a passionate fury, when she knew if she didnât do something sheâd explode, at either Ruby or her mother. Sheâd slammed the door to her room and picked up a pen instead. Heat and power surged through her veins as she found her stride. How wonderful it felt to let the words gush from her completely unrestrained! Sheâd written an entire aerogram of tiny writing in half an hour. She had held nothing back, wrote direct from her heart and her head, and the two together reinforced her.
Her wretched situation was all his fault, she told him, for not writing her more often and for making such feeble attempts when he did. Was he afraid the censor might think he loved his wife if he wrote more than one special term of endearment in the salutation? She had begged him and begged him to write more often, and he had not. Why didnât she matter to him? Had he stopped loving her? If he had done what he was supposed to do, none of this would ever have happened and she would behappy for a change and all her letters to him would be sweet. She did matter, for his information.
She shouldnât have mailed it and she knew she shouldnât have mailed it. Sheâd ignored the cautioning voice in her head and made herself drop the letter in the box. Maybe she should have torn it up. But no: it was important to let him know what she was going through, because it at least gave him the opportunity to respond. And she did not hold with the notion some people had that when man and wife are far apart, some pieces of news would be better withheld, including, she supposed, the mental state of that wife. (Sometimes she wondered if she needed a psychiatrist. Should her husband know that? Yes. Especially when he was a doctor.) There was nothing to be gained by pretending that things were different than they actually were. It wasnât honest or useful, while even the exercise of pouring out misery in a few thousand words on paper could be of help, both to the person writing and to the intended recipient. She had felt so much better after writing. No, Tom would always get the straight goods from her. He might be in the war, but she wasnât going to deny the difï¬culties she was facing.
She looked sadly at herself in the mirror. She was angry yesterday, not today. Today she missed her darling husband with all her heart; loved him; longed for him. The only annoyance today so far was that sheâd woken up with her period. Well, at least she wasnât pregnant. Odd, but with the onset of her menses she felt herself returning to a kind of calm, stability, after what she only now recognized as an emotional rather than rational state. It had happened before.
After Ruby was in bed that night, she wrote him again.
My Dearest Love,
I miss you so much tonight. I literally ache to have you near. I am inï¬nitely wretched for every mile that separates us, and yet I am happy too, because I recognize myself tonight. The volcano has subsided and I am serene in the one thought, that I love you. I love you dearâad inï¬nitum. I want you to know that I am weeping mental tears of anguish when I recall the awful letter which will have reached you recently. I donât
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