The Correspondent

by Virginia Evans

I believe one ought to be precious with communication. Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal. Sometimes, Caroline, the easiest inroad is to begin with a thank you, for a gift or a kindness or a letter, you know, and then take it from there. Answer every question they’ve asked, and ask your own, and you will have created a never-ending circuit of curiosity and learning.

I look in the mirror and how can it be? I am an old woman. What has my life been, really? I’ll go blind, and then? I wonder—the letters. All the letters. I wonder if all of it was a waste. Pages and pages of letters. I wonder what has it all been, really. I’ll go blind, and they will be nothing to me. It will be as if they aren’t there, and does that mean, in a way, they were never there? I’m not sure.