Letters to Lincoln

by Tracie Podger

  I noticed he hadn’t said ‘Christmas.’ Not that I had any intention of celebrating. Another thing to grieve for, Trey had loved Christmas.

  He placed the two mugs on the kitchen table and sat. “Anyway, I have a doctor’s this morning, and then I have to go to the vet to pick up Lucy’s meds. Do you fancy a walk with me?”

  I reached for the pad.

  Why do you need the doctor?

  “Just the usual, old man check up. Nothing to worry about. It would be nice if you’d walk with me.”

  I looked at his face that held hope and I gently shook my head.

  I’m sorry.

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Dani. It’s okay, I know, baby.”

  It must be so fucking frustrating for him. Having one-sided conversations with a daughter that had holed up in his house.

  He placed his hand on my head and gently ruffled my hair, as he’d done so many times in the past.

  As soon as Dad left, I retrieved the letter I’d received from my pocket. I read again, trying to picture the narrator in my mind. An older gentleman with grey hair; perhaps he had an old scratched writing desk beside an open fireplace. The paper looked to be high quality, the kind with the blue tint and faint blue lines. If handwriting could be described as stunning, his would. The letters were so perfectly joined up, on a slant and sharp. Maybe he had a convent education, or at least somewhere where handwriting was taught, old school. For that moment, my mind wasn’t focused on my misery but on the writer of the letter.

  I analysed each word, found meaning behind the sentiment. I hoped he would reply.

  It was hard not to pull on my shoes and walk down the beach; it was an effort to hope that he had replied. I’d been offered counselling, I’d turned that down. What could anyone say to make it better? But just a couple of lines of pure honesty in his words had struck a cord.

  I won’t tell you it gets better in time, it doesn’t. It becomes different, bearable.

  Only someone who had suffered loss could have written those words.

  Unless a therapist had experienced the same, how could they possibly expect to sit with me and understand?

  I thought I heard the rattle of something metal. I turned to look down the hallway and to the front door, expecting my dad to walk in. When he didn’t, I got up to investigate. On the odd occasion we’d have visitors, I would take myself to my bedroom, saving them, and me, the embarrassment of having to converse. I prayed we didn’t have a visitor waiting outside for me to open the door.

  I must have stood for a minute or two before I noticed it. On the mat just inside the front door was an envelope. A purple envelope. I bent down to pick it up. My name was handwritten on the outside. The writing was familiar and my hand shook as I stared at it.

  I walked the stairs to my bedroom and curled into the leather chair placed in front of the window. I gently opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper, neatly folded in half.

  Dani,

  I think you needed me to reply, and I didn’t want to run the risk of leaving this letter in a bottle on a beach. I didn’t think you’d mind if I dropped it through your door. Of course, I know where you live. It’s a small village, and I knew you when you were a child.

  So, how does it become different? I can only tell you my story. The pain will subside; the numbness will chase it away. And maybe, for a while, the numbness is all you will feel. You might get scared that you won’t ever feel again. I forced the feelings to come back, Dani. I did stupid things before I discovered that wasn’t the answer.

  Time is the only thing you have and if, like me, you’re impatient, you’ll find that time drags so very slowly. Let nature heal you, let time just tick away as it’s supposed to.

  You will survive this, but you will be different. You can’t possibly be the same person. How you end up is your decision. You can drown yourself in alcohol, and hate the world more, or you can learn that life isn’t fair. It’s fucking shit sometimes, but there is nothing we can do about that. You can stop fighting and start accepting. Only then will you be able to come out the other side with part of you left intact. And it’s that part that is the foundation from which the new you will emerge.

  It’s hard work, Dani. It’s not easy; don’t let anyone try to tell you differently. It’s an effort to get up each morning, shower, and dress. It’s hard work to force food into a stomach coiled so tight with acid and pain. But you have to.

  Each day, without you even noticing, you are one step closer to being able to function without the crushing guilt and the endless pain.

  Whether this is right or wrong, I’m pleased to have made your acquaintance. Maybe, we both need this.

  If you want to reply, let’s get creative. Just a short walk up the lane is the entrance to the farm. Don’t worry, it’s not mine, I don’t live there. Outside the gate you’ll see an old wooden box. It used to be an honesty box, maybe you remember. They would put a small table outside with apples; we’d drop a few coins in the box as payment. Leave your response there, Dani.

  Soon enough the bottle will be taken out to sea and won’t return. And I’d hate for you to think I didn’t reply.

  Lincoln.

  Lincoln? I racked my brain; I didn’t know a Lincoln, but he said he knew me as a child. Maybe he was a teacher and I’d only know him by his surname. I read the letter again. There were parts where I thought he was actually writing to himself, giving himself the advice he needed. His letter wasn’t just to help me; it was to help him as well.

  I read the letter through again. I paused over one part of a sentence…we’d drop a few coins in the box as payment. Had he meant we as in him and me? Or we as in the general public? I remembered the table with the apples, and especially liked to visit in October when the table would be filled with homemade toffee apples for Halloween.

  His use of an expletive surprised me; maybe he wasn’t the elderly man with the scratched writing desk, beside an open fire, that I imagined. I tried to remember the children in the small primary school I’d attended, the name Lincoln didn’t ring any bells there. Not that I could remember that many names. Maybe Christian or Dad might know. But that would mean confessing to opening up to a complete stranger. Telling this Lincoln things they had been trying to get me to say to them. Would that hurt them?

  I picked up my pad and pen.

  Lincoln,

  I’m pleased to know your name. I wondered if part of what you wrote was to yourself, as well as me.

  I can’t speak, physically there is nothing wrong with me, but I open my mouth and no words come out. I’m glad. I don’t want to speak, so writing to you is the only conversation I’ve had since… You know, I can’t remember the date it happened. It was early in the year, that’s all I know. A truck drove into our car, it forced us off the road. Trey unclipped himself to protect Hannah and me; I was seven months pregnant at the time. If he’d stayed in his seat, he might not be dead. We all might have survived. At first, I was angry with him. Not now, now I know he sacrificed himself for Hannah and me, she just didn’t make it. I don’t actually know why. I never read any medical reports; I didn’t want to know.

  They’re buried in the cemetery and I’ve never visited them. Other than to walk the beach, when I know it will be empty; I don’t leave the house. I can’t face meeting someone and them wanting to talk. Perhaps that gives you some idea why, for the first time in however many months, receiving your letter has lifted me a little.

  You know, don’t you? You know exactly how I feel. Who did you lose, Lincoln?

  How long does it take? How long before I’ll be able to feel something again?

  Dani.

  I folded the letter and placed in the same envelope he had left through the letterbox. I wrote his name next to mine. I wasn’t sure whether I’d make that short walk to the honesty box, but it felt cathartic to reply. I wanted to know his story; I wanted to know who he had lost and how he had survived. A small part of me felt selfish for asking him to relive
that time. But then, I guessed, he wouldn’t have written back in the first place if he hadn’t wanted to share his story. It would have been inevitable that I’d ask, wouldn’t it?

  Dad had prepared dinner for us, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cooked a meal. I sat at the table with him and he chatted. Every now and again he’d reach across and place his hand on mine, giving it a squeeze. I looked at his hand, calloused from many hours of manual labour. My dad had been a carpenter before he’d retired. Most of the furnishings in the house were the product of his labour. But now the hand that held mine was riddled with arthritis, his fingers had started to curl and were bony. Soon it would be October, and although September hadn’t been the late Indian summer we’d been promised, the cold winds that battered the cottage in winter would play havoc with his hands.

  I studied his face as he spoke, while he ate. When did he get this old? What I remembered as fine lines around his eyes that got deeper with the laughter he always had for me, were more profound. His sparkling blue eyes were duller, filled with unshed tears. The tanned skin from days outside his workshop was paler. I should be caring for him, not the other way round.

  I pushed my plate to one side.

  How long has it been, Dad? I slid the pad over to him.

  “Two hundred and fifty days, Dani,” he said, without hesitation and completely understanding what I’d asked. “Not long enough, so don’t you worry about a thing.”

  Two hundred and fifty days. I tried to calculate, eight months, or thereabouts. Somehow it seemed longer.

  “You need to stop rushing it, baby. You know, when your mum died, I thought I’d die with her. I wanted to. I can’t tell you how many times I picked up bottle after bottle of medication she’d been given. I emptied one in my hand one time. I wanted to take the lot. But I didn’t. The thought of you and Chris wasn’t the reason I didn’t. Grief makes us selfish, although I hate to use that word. I didn’t take them because I knew your mum would be furious at me. She would be so angry that she had no choice in living but I did. I had the choice to live; I had a choice that had been denied to her. You have a choice, Dani. You can live, or you can continue with this existence. And you know what, whatever your choice, it’s okay.”

  For the first time in a while, I heard every word he’d said. Tears formed in my eyes. He reached over and wiped his thumb under one eye.

  “Every day it kills me to see you in such pain. But I can tell you this. One day you’ll wake up and the sun will shine, the birds will sing, and it will lift your heart a little. One day you’ll speak, when you have something to say. Right now, you have nothing to give, so sit back and be looked after. I’m your dad, this is what I needed to live for.”

  He stood and cleared away the plates, not that I think he’d finished his meal; it was more so I didn’t see his tears fall.

  Chapter Four

  “Going for a walk? Watch those steps, Dani, they’re getting slippery now.”

  Dad had seen me walk out the back door. I turned to him and nodded, I managed a small smile. He beamed back at me.

  Since our chat at dinnertime, something had changed. I saw him through different eyes. And that tonne of weight that weighed heavily on my shoulders was lighter by an ounce or two.

  I placed my hand in my pocket, wrapping it around the envelope, and I skirted the side of the house. I wasn’t going to the beach; I was taking a walk up the lane to the honesty box. I paused halfway. Honesty Box. What I wrote, what Lincoln wrote, was about the most honest we’d been, I believed.

  I stood by the newly painted metal gate and searched. Wedged into the hedge was the wooden box. I lifted the lid and looked inside. It was empty. I placed the envelope in and closed it, and then I walked back down to the cottage.

  I didn’t go in straight away, I passed the side window and saw the back of Dad’s head as he sat on the sofa watching the TV. I pulled out the garden chair from under the table and sat.

  How angry would you be at me for giving up, Trey? I thought. I knew the answer.

  I wasn’t ready to face life; I didn’t know when I’d be. But I knew there were some things I needed to confront. I walked in to the living room with my pad and pen.

  I can’t remember what she looked like, and that hurts me.

  “She was beautiful. She looked like you, the day you were born. Wait here,” Dad said once he’d read my note.

  I sat on the sofa and waited. A couple of minutes later, he returned. He held in his hand a photo frame. I took it from him and through the blur of my tears I looked at my daughter. Her eyes were open, big blue eyes stared up at a camera and her forehead was frowned, as if in indignation. She was wrapped in a blanket. Carved into the frame were her name, the date, and her weight.

  Hannah Carlton – 03/02/16 – 3lbs2oz

  How did they know her name? I wrote.

  “They didn’t, you told me. When you woke up, you told me her name.”

  I ran my finger over her face.

  “That was taken by a nurse immediately after she was born.”

  I nodded, understanding why she looked so cross and why she was wrapped in a white blanket.

  Did you see her?

  “I sat with her day and night, Dani. I held her little hand. She was in an incubator thing and I watched her every second of the time she…”

  Were you with her when…?

  “Yes. They took her out of the incubator and I held her to my chest. Like they show on the telly. I opened my shirt and I placed her next to my heart. If she couldn’t feel yours, she at least had a part of you through me. I wanted to bring her to you, even though you were unconscious; I wanted to lay her on your chest. But it wasn’t to be.”

  I watched my tears fall onto the glass.

  “I made three. Patricia has one, I have one, and that one is for you. I held on to it until I thought you were ready.”

  I mouthed two words—thank you.

  “Do you want to know why you had the C-section?” Dad whispered. I nodded my head.

  “You were bleeding, internally. The surgeon didn’t think it wise to operate while you carried Hannah. So they delivered her, and then fixed you. I made a decision, Dani; a decision that was impossible to get right. Save you, and take a risk on Hannah’s slim chance of survival, or maybe lose you both if they didn’t operate.”

  I stared at him. He did nothing to hide the tears that fell from his eyes.

  “I chose you, and I prayed every second of every minute of every day that Hannah would make it. If I had chosen otherwise, the surgeon would have overridden me anyway. Your life was more important.”

  I swallowed hard.

  Lincoln didn’t reply immediately. The day after I’d left the letter in the honesty box, I’d walked back up the lane, and although mine had gone, there wasn’t a reply. Nor was there one the following day. At first, I wondered if my question had put him off replying. I walked along the beach and found the bottle missing, maybe the tide had finally taken it out.

  I was still processing what my dad had told me. It had been the first time I’d learned of the details. I couldn't imagine the position he’d been put in, but there was a tiny piece of me that had hoped he would have given both Hannah and me just a little longer to see. Maybe another month on and she would have survived. But then, I didn’t know if I would have had a month.

  It was later that day when I walked into the kitchen and saw an envelope on the table. Dad was busy making tea. I sat and picked it up.

  “That was on the doormat,” he said. He didn’t ask anymore and I didn’t offer an explanation. I took the tea he handed me, picked up the envelope, and walked upstairs to my sanctuary by the window. I sat for a while, just looking out to sea and turning the envelope over continuously in my hand. Eventually, I opened it.

  Dani,

  My wife died of breast cancer a couple of years ago, now. She didn’t tell me she’d felt a lump, she didn’t ask me to accompany her to the doctor’s, or the consultant for her diagno
sis. She even started treatment without me knowing. I found out by mistake. I took a call from the oncology office, changing an appointment. Can you imagine the shock? I was so angry with her. She hadn’t wanted me to worry about her. It was my job to worry about her! We fought, and I felt like a shit for walking out and slamming the door on her tears. Of course, we patched things up but I was hurt.

  There will always be a little hurt inside I guess. I wasn’t there to hold her hand and comfort her when she got the news. I wasn’t there to question the doctors, ask for second opinions, or discuss treatment. I wasn’t there when she had her first chemo session, and for a long time I felt excluded from her illness. I understand now, but it took time.

  As for answering your second question—how long does it take to feel again? That’s a hard one to answer. I felt anger, then sadness, then numbness. I screamed at the world for a while. I spent a long time looking at the bottom of an empty whisky bottle, wondering why I was still alive after consuming bottle after bottle.

  It was six months before I realised being drunk all the time wasn’t working. It was another two months before I was clean, before the shakes, the sickness, left me, and my body was cleansed of the poison I’d been feeding it. It was only then that I was able to breathe without the pain.

  Shall I tell you a secret? When she started to lose her hair, she asked me to cut it off. I keep that hair in a little box. One day I intend to throw the hair into the sea, her favourite place. I can’t bring myself to do it just yet.

  Go talk to them, Dani. You don’t need the details of what actually happened, but you do need to know one thing. I can guarantee Trey would have done the same thing over and over. Protecting you, protecting Hannah, it’s instinct. It’s inbuilt, part of our DNA, it’s how our brains are wired. He did what came naturally to him, to us, to men in general.