THE MISPLACED LETTER - #WRITEAPAGEADAY #BLOGCHATTER
“… we therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
As the priest intoned the words from the Book of Common
Prayer, the coffin was lowered into the grave, as audible sobs were heard from
the mourners. Jim pressed his handkerchief to his eyes, his heart breaking
within as he thought of his beloved wife, Rose, lying in the cold ground
forever more.
“How unfair it is that she should have gone before me!”
he thought as the tears fell steadily. He looked at his two daughters, Emily
and Sheela, who stood in their black garb, their eyes red with weeping. How
would they go on, how would he go on with life without her? “Rose, oh, Rose!”
his heart wept as he dropped clods of earth on her coffin along with the others
who were all in a state of shock.
Rose had been the bulwark of their family. She had run
their lives like clockwork, meticulous in everything that she undertook – Jim’s
job, the girls’ school, and later, college affairs and beyond. She turned away
no one in need. Her kindness was legendary and there were many who came to weep
at her grave who had had that kindness turned upon themselves. No one could
ever forget Rose, would ever forget her in future as well.
Back home, at the wake, their neighbours had brought casseroles
filled with delicious food. They served all the mourners, forcing Jim and the
girls to eat as well.
“Rose would never forgive us if we let you stay hungry,”
was their common comment. “She took care of us all. It is our turn to return
the favour, even if she is not here to receive it,” sniffed Dora, a close
friend of the family. She promptly burst into tears and ran out of the room.
Emily went after her, trying to console her, because she knew how close she had
been to Rose.
“There, there, Dora Aunty!” she fussed over her as the
other kept crying into her sodden handkerchief.
The first week went by with friends and neighbours dropping
in at frequent intervals, always with food and consoling words.
“Sheela Baby, Emily Baby, so much of food in the refrigerator…
so many pans to return. Please write the names on the pans so that I don’t mix
them up.”
Their maid, Ruby was at the end of her tether. Every day
she would cook a dish in a huge pan so that she could fill the pots to be
returned to all the never-ending well-wishers. Life had been so much easier
when Rose was around. She was an amazing cook and all Ruby had to do was clean the
house. Like the others, she too missed Rose very much.
“Girls, we need to sort out your mother’s clothes and
possessions and decide what we should do with them,” Jim said one day. It would
be an emotionally draining task, he knew, but it had to be done.
So, on a weekend, the three of them took turns to sift
through Rose’s belongings… the clothes
which held a hint of her perfume, the dog-eared books which she had held close
to her heart and her diaries in which she had written about her joys and
sorrows.
“Dad, you go through her diaries… they contain her
private thoughts and only you should be privy to them,” Emily felt a choke in
her throat as she said this, and Jim understood the pain she was undergoing. He
nodded mutely and began to look at his wife’s diaries. As he skimmed through
them, his eyes filled with tears. He had never realised how lonely she had
been, how many aspirations she had had and how much she had sacrificed for him
and her girls.
“My life is dull. I wish I could sprout wings and fly
away somewhere. It is only my love for Jim and my darling girls that stops me.”
“How do I make Jim understand that I too have dreams,
that I am not just a drudge born to manage household chores.”
The latter entries were painful to the man reading them.
Why had Rose never told him how she felt, cooped up at home? Why had he never
tried to fathom her feelings?
It took him a week to browse through all her diaries.
Many he skimmed through, some were so personal that they stabbed him in the
heart. He saw the lack-lustre husband he had been to a woman who had slowly
lost her enthusiasm and her spirit. “I am so sorry, Rose!” he whispered. “I
wish I had known!”
The last diary had only a few entries. The last date was two days before Rose died. It had a thick leather cover and as he turned the pages, he felt something sticking out from under the cover. He pulled it out carefully. It was a stamped envelope, and to his astonishment, he saw that it was addressed to him. He opened the envelope and smoothened out the single sheet of paper within.
“Dear Jim,
I cannot go on like this. I have been dreading this
moment – the moment when I tell you that my heart is no longer yours. I am in
love with Paul, and I intend to go away with him now that the girls are also
grown up enough.
Forgive me for this. You are a good man and you have
always been good to me. However, I need more – affection, passion and understanding.
Paul gives me all these.
Yours,
Rose.”
The sheet of paper dropped from his nerveless fingers, but
not before he had noticed the date on which this letter had been written. Three
years ago!
His mind went back to those days when Paul, their
neighbour, had been a regular fixture at home. Jim had never even suspected
anything between Paul and Rose. However, it was then that Paul had met with a car
accident and after a few days in the ICU, he had succumbed to his injuries.
Jim sat on Rose’s favourite armchair, his head in his
arms. For a while, his mind remained blank as his heart wept at the enormity of
the revelation that had come to his notice, too late for anything to be done. He
wept for Rose and her despair, for his two motherless daughters for whom their
mother had been everything, and most of all, for himself, an empty hollow man
who had not been much of a husband to his beloved wife. He wished he had not
read her diaries which had revealed so much.
Once his tears had been spent, he rose and put all the
diaries in a big plastic bag and tied it with a rope. He knew exactly what he
had to do next.
Rose’s secrets would die along with her.
1152 words
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