The Last Christmas Card
By Laura Briggs
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Laura Briggs
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Cover Image: “Silent Night”. Altered digital art. Used with artist’s permission, all rights reserved.
Samantha Sowerman turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. It resisted, the wood sticking to the painted frame and parting with a sigh as it whooshed open with a blast of cool air. The smell of stale rooms and dust from the empty foyer.
The Boston brownstone was only half-renovated; that was the reason rent was cheap for a post-college vagabond in search of a temporary home. Perfect for Samantha, who never parked her bags anywhere for long. Not since her mother's late-stage cancer diagnosis meant the end of home.
She sneezed as she carried her knapsack and duffel bag through the main hall, a film of dust coating her kinky blond hair. Green wallpaper decorated with roses trailed in strips from the walls in the main hall. Thick dust like a carpet over the dark walnut floors, fading an area rug left carelessly at the foot of the stairs.
Her apartment was the one on the main floor–the only one with running water at the moment, apparently. The owner Mrs. Lindell had inherited the house from a more wealthy relative and planned to transform the three stories into a series of spacious apartments to attract tenants with an interest in living in one of the historic neighborhoods. Samantha's space had once been the downstairs parlor and dining room, now a bedroom and sitting area with two spaces walled off for the kitchen and bathroom. A narrow shower and repurposed cabinets stripped here and there of retro orange paint.
Above the doorway to the bedroom was an old-fashioned framed sampler: For what you give us, Lord, make us truly thankful.
"Somebody must have been a spiritual brother or sister," she said, touching the dusty frame with one hand. Her fingers just barely reached it.
These days she had nobody to talk to but God, and the occasional distant relative who sent her a card or a letter to make sure everything was all right. But Samantha was used to being on her own; used to being a constant movement in the world. Like a seed bursting from a dandelion head, waiting a push from the wind.
After college, it was a mission trip to Botswana. An agricultural outreach ministry in Australia. Two months spent on the inner city streets of New York working at a homeless shelter–and now, half a year as the editor of a church outreach journal.
"We're not looking for anybody permanent, Miss Sowerman. Just someone to write a series on mission travel. If you're interested, we'd love to publish your pieces for this year's journals." The publisher's email from Global Outreach had reached her inbox less than a month after she returned from a brief mission assignment in Puerto Rico.
It was the perfect break for her; the chance to rest between experiences and earn a little to apply to her college loans. All she needed was a place to live, anywhere she could find a space that would let her camp for six months to a year.
That's when she found an online ad for the brownstone apartment under renovation.
"You won't have any neighbors," Mrs. Lindell informed her over the phone. "The rest of the building is pretty much under construction right now. You know, building a bathroom in the basement, putting a kitchen upstairs, etc."
"That's fine," Samantha answered. "I mean, I'm not afraid to be alone in the building if that's what you're thinking."
"The noise level will be a little loud for awhile," said her future landlady. "But most of it will be in the basement. If you need a place to store some stuff, I can let you use a room upstairs until they're ready to start that apartment."
Samantha laughed. "I travel light, so the extra space isn't necessary," she answered. "I think the apartment's size will be perfect for me."
And it was. A few posters of Africa on the wall, a framed honeymoon photo of her parents and a few of her friends from college. The group photo from her missionary stint in Australia propped on the dresser next to an antique basin left in the room and her battered Bible. In the closet, she found a locked tin box, now piled with her spare sneakers splattered with paint and tie-dyed t-shirts with church camp slogans.
She tacked up the poster of her next great adventure on the wall and stepped back to smile at the scene of two village children playing against a vivid sunset. One of her friends from Botswana had told her about it, a mission experience as an interpreter for a farm and medical mission in South America. Her Spanish was good, made better with practice in Puerto Rico. There was an opening in the spring; all she had to do was pay her way to the village in Brazil.
With a sigh, she sank down on the bed, leaning back with eyes closed. An old quilt was draped across its end, stitched with blackbirds and red sunflowers. It reminded her of one when she was a little girl. Her mother tied the corners with bright yarn in red and yellow.
Even though her own quilt had fallen to pieces years ago, it was still alive in her memory as she snuggled beneath the musty folds later that night.
*****
Silence echoed in the hallways of the house, drifting from doors ajar upstairs and half-finished rooms. Samantha had walked through them out of curiosity, interested to see the rest of her temporary home. Stained glass windows filtered light in rose and yellow on the second floor, skeleton walls visible in the future apartment and the old bathroom, where a claw foot tub resided with rows of narrow copper pipes half-torn from the wall.
At the top of the stairs was a narrow passage that opened to the attic. She turned the rattling knob and peered inside. Shawls of cobweb draped over cardboard boxes, a sewing mannequin and globe tumbled together near the window. She pulled the door shut again and climbed downstairs to the main floor.
When not exploring, she was writing. Her first article was on the resources available in Botswana for new missionaries, where English-speaking facilities were available. A second document open was on the food culture, popular dishes and limits on what was available for purchase.
Samantha's fingers flew over the keyboard, her laptop plugged into an outlet alongside an old table lamp. Cross-legged on the sofa, she flipped through piles of saved brochures and training guides from her trip. A CD of conversation Brazilian phrases played in the background to fill up the silence as she wrote. The only other sound was the occasional passing car or the ring of the front bell if one of the workmen forgot his key to the basement-level apartment.
Every day the mail dropped through a slot in the door. An experience that still struck her as unique, after years of post office boxes in scattered locations.
She wasn't expecting anything important–just a credit card bill, a student loan statement, the usual round of junk mail and sales ads. She picked them up from the mat and glanced over them as she sipped orange juice or carried the recycling out to the curb.
As a child, there was a mailbox at the end of the driveway, where she would kick up clouds of dust from the dirt road whenever she pulled the envelopes from inside. Letters for her mother, grocery ads from the local store, a typewritten reminder from the library that their interlibrary loans had arrived. Back when mail was an experience personal and everyday. Not an occasional surprise or a paper destined for the recycling bin.
She could hear the sound of envelopes thumping softly against the wood floor in the foyer and rose from her seat on the sofa. Pa
dding into the hallway barefoot to collect the pile, she slipped on a pair of old sneakers and a sweatshirt jacket, feeling the need for a little fresh air in the process..
Lifting the papers from the floor, Samantha pushed open the door and stepped onto the foyer. Her fingers sorted the mail as she trod towards the paper recycling bin, crushing wet leaves beneath her sneakers on the walkway.
She tossed the ads for deli meat into the bin, along with an ad for the local election. A fresh flurry of leaves stirred on the sidewalk, papery forms tinged red and yellow from the large maple tree in front of the house. She added a magazine notice addressed to the current occupant to the pile, then glanced at the last piece of mail. A letter envelope.
It was a real letter. That was her first thought as she lifted it up to examine it. The handwriting frail, like veins of ink crisscrossed on the yellowed paper. Two stamps in the corner with a military insignia of some kind.
There were water stains on the address, as if the envelope had been splattered by rain. The paper felt frail in her hands, as if its corners would crumble beneath her touch. The name Private Mac Hyberg in the far corner, a town in Belgium. The name Bette Larsen visible above the street and city in the center. Maybe Bette was the person who lived in the house before her.
The she saw the postmark. December 1947.
How on earth had it ended up in the mail? For a moment, she was dumbstruck at the thought. Had it accidentally gotten mixed up with the paper? The envelope was still sealed, as if no one had ever opened it.
It had definitely come from the post office. Somehow, this letter had been caught in time, never finding its destination until now.
Inside the house, she carried it to the kitchen, debating what to do. Returning it would do no good–not after all these years. She couldn't open it to see if the contents were important; it was a felony to open someone else's mail, wasn't it? Even if the letter was over sixty years old, surely the rules applied.
Maybe there was another way. As she tacked it to the dorm fridge in her apartment with a butterfly magnet, she tried to imagine the lost letter from a soldier somewhere in Europe.
*****
"Bette? Bette who?" Mrs. Lindell sounded confused.
"The last person who lived here," answered Samantha, trying to sound helpful. "Your relative. Was the family name Larsen, or something like that?"
"No, it was Granger," Mrs. Lindell answered. "My uncle's family. I'm pretty sure there weren't any Larsens in their family tree."
"What about the people who owned the house before that?" suggested Samantha. "Or did they rent it to somebody maybe?" She tapped the envelope against her hand as she cradled the phone on her shoulder. Through the narrow window, she could see the last few leaves drifting from the branches as the mailman made his rounds through the neighborhood.
"I don't know who owned it before them, I'm afraid," said Mrs. Lindell. "He bought it from somebody about ten years ago, but I don't know the name."
"Can you find out, maybe?" Samantha asked. "I think I found something that belonged to them. A letter. It looks kind of important." While this last part was a slight stretch, she hoped it would rouse her landlady to look up the answer.
"I'll go through his papers and see if I can find it," Mrs. Lindell sighed. "But I'm afraid you may have to just leave whatever it is buried or just toss it out. Probably too late to track down the people who wanted it."
By the time she hung up, Samantha had nothing better than the landlady's promise to look up the address, but nothing to go on. She stared at the envelope, wondering how long it had been since anyone by that name had lived in the house.
Maybe someone from the Granger family had married the Larsens. Maybe the Larsens were the previous owners–and somewhere in their paperwork was a forwarding address for the house's buyer.
Or maybe the neighbors would have the answer. On either side of the brownstone was an nearly-identical building in terms of shape and size. Both were occupied, but the one on the left was divided into apartments similar to her own building.
The one on the right, however, was still someone's home. There was a slim chance the resident could have been living there for years. That was Samantha's thought as pulled on a yellow rain slicker the next afternoon as rain was drizzling from the overcast skies.
The wet stone beneath her sandals was slippery as she took the steps two at time and rang the bell. Disappointed by the sight of a face scarcely older than her own on the other side.
"Sorry, never heard of the Larsens," said the girl. "My grandma lived here a few years ago, but she died last winter."
"Did either of your parents live here?" asked Samantha. Wondering if maybe another relative in the house would remember an older neighbor. "Did they know your grandmother's friends?"
The girl shook her head. "My dad moved in before she died, but he's gone a lot on business trips. I'm just house-sitting for him this weekend. He never talked about anyone coming by while she was sick." The girl was leaning on the door, prepared to close it as soon as possible.
"Well, thanks anyway," Samantha answered. A moment later, a green-painted door was between herself and her neighbor.
Back inside her own apartment, she stared at the envelope propped against the napkin holder on her counter. Wondering if the effort of looking for this person was worth it. After all, her landlady seemed convinced that the former occupants of the house were beyond reach. And perhaps what was inside wasn't so important after all.
As if by impulse, she lifted it and turned it over, holding the envelope's flap above the steam rising from the tea kettle. The slow puffs enveloped the paper.
Are you crazy? This isn't yours to open. The thought popped into her head as the flap lifted from the moisture. She pulled open the drawer to find a glue stick and reseal it. But the object inside caught her eye.
What if the answer to the owner's whereabouts was in this envelope? Her fingers touched the contents, drew them out slowly, afraid of tearing the fragile paper.
A blue and white Christmas card, small and folded to fit the envelope's pocket. A snow-covered village, the steeple of a church and buildings that reminded her of European towns. A white and gold star blazed in one corner above golden swirling letters spelling a message in a foreign language.
She unfolded the card, the inside crammed with lines written in wavering ink.
Dear Bets, it said. I hope you're reading this somewhere alone before Christmas and that you're having a swell time. I'll bet you've been too busy to write many letters with all the studying for exams. I hope you do the best in your class. Your mama will be proud of you and you'll be a graduate by the time I get back from this war.
I carry your photo everywhere I go. I guess I think about you all the time, even when it seems like home is a million miles away and I'll never get back there. It must be Christmas that makes it feel this way. Sometimes I picture you putting tinsel on the tree and wrapping up presents in newspaper. I wanted to get you something special, but there's not much for a soldier to buy where I am right now. I wish I could tell you about it, but the war department wouldn't let me send this if I did.
Do you think about me? The last time I saw you, I told you how I felt. If there's a chance you'll still feel the same when the war's over, then tell me so. Tell me you'll keep waiting until I make it back. That way I'll have something to hold onto.
Merry Christmas, Bets.
Love, Mac.
Samantha refolded the card and slid it gently into the envelope again. That message from so long ago had never reached its destination. Had he received a letter from his sweetheart, even though this card had disappeared between Europe and home? The long-ago words of the soldier vibrated through her mind like a chord of music echoing after a symphony's end.
Gently, she closed the flap. On the back she read the names of the long-ago Bette Larsen and her sweetheart. Private Mac Hydberg, from the 43rd unit of the Armed Forces. A soldier from somewhere in Boston, Massachusetts.
*****
Tyler Lars kept the television on all night. The comforting, dull murmur of voices and noise in the background, the constant static of white noise when the reception gave out. Otherwise, he would hear only the noises in his dreams. The sound of artillery, the explosion of bombs he couldn't diffuse. The screams of children whose parents died in a spray of shrapnel and heat.
He would jerk awake again, sweating as if the heat of the Iraqi desert surrounded him. Only it was the dimly lit apartment he called home, the worn suede sofa and glow of the electronic clock on the nearby table. The television screen was black; probably from a few seconds of power outage.
Sitting up, he rubbed his leg beneath the blanket. Feeling the familiar ache from the wound torn through flesh and muscle, the twisted scar where a piece of his leg was now missing. The army doctors had done their best to remove every last piece, but sometimes it felt as if heated metal was still embedded in his body. Searing him with the pain as the bodies of fellow soldiers and civilians lay around him.
He crawled from beneath the throw, stumbling over the sneakers piled beside the sofa, the half-eaten microwave dinner still in its tray. Limping towards the kitchen, he opened the cabinet and rummaged for a bottle of painkillers. Popping two without hesitation, his glance roving towards the postcard pinned to one of the cabinets. Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount: a parting gift from the chaplain who sat by his bedside and helped him through the first few weeks of painful recovery.
These days, his faith seemed like the family he never had: absent on all counts. Like the transitional curse of being a foster kid manifested itself in every level of his existence. First his childhood, then his military career, and finally, his God.
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