Chapter 6: The Second Letter
The paper was thinner than the boarding pass.
Older, somehow, even though they had been kept together.
It had been folded and unfolded enough times that the creases had gone white.
I opened it carefully.
The handwriting was my grandfather's — I knew it from birthday cards, from the backs of photographs, from the one letter he had written me when I was seven and had my tonsils out and he was away on a long route and couldn't come home.
Big, deliberate letters.
A man who had learned to write with intention.
*Eleanor,*
*If something happens on the Chicago run, look for the maintenance report filed October 3rd.
I've kept a copy with Tom Garrett at the union office.
Don't let them tell you it was pilot error.
It wasn't.
I know what I felt in that aircraft and I know what I wrote in the log.*
*I'm not trying to frighten you.
I'm trying to make sure the truth has somewhere to go, in case I can't carry it myself.*
*I love you.
I love the kids.
Tell them I was careful.*
*— Robert*
I read it twice.
Then I sat down in the nearest chair because my legs had made a quiet decision without consulting me.
"You've had this for twenty-seven years," I said.
"Yes."
"Did you ever — did you go to the union?
Did you find Tom Garrett?"
Grandma sat down beside me.
She folded her hands.
"I tried.
Tom Garrett had retired by the time I started asking.
The union told me the file had been closed.
The airline told me the investigation was complete.
Everyone was very polite and very final." She looked at her hands.
"I was a widow with three children and no lawyer and no money for a fight.
I put the letter away.
I told myself Robert had gotten it wrong.
That it was grief making me look for reasons."
"But you kept it."
"I kept it."
I looked at the letter again.
The date.
October 3rd.
The flight had gone down on October 19th.
Sixteen days.
He had known for sixteen days that something was wrong, and he had flown anyway, because that was his job and he was careful and he trusted that the report would be enough.
That the system would work.
"Mom found a copy of the maintenance report," I said.
"In Grandpa's files.
She's had it for twenty-three years."
Grandma turned to look at me.
"She never told me."
"She didn't know what to do with it."
Something moved across Grandma's face — not anger, exactly.
Something more complicated.
The expression of a woman who had spent decades carrying a weight alone and has just learned that someone else in the house had been carrying a matching one, in silence, in a separate room.
"Call her back," Grandma said.
I called.
Put it on speaker.
"Mom.
I'm here with Grandma.
She has a letter."
My mother's breath caught audibly.
"Eleanor," she said.
It came out like an apology.
"Patricia." Grandma's voice was even.
"How long have you had the report?"
"Twenty-three years.
I'm sorry.
I didn't — I was afraid of what it meant.
I was afraid of what you'd do with it.
You'd already lost so much."
"I'd already lost everything," Grandma said quietly.
"A piece of paper wasn't going to make it worse."
Silence on the line.
"I have the original," my mother said finally.
"I never threw it away.
It's in the house.
In the same drawer."
May you like
"Then take it out of the drawer," Grandma said.
"It's time."
