twenty
With Meg and the ‘sainted’ John, as Jo started calling him in her head, in the house, they were merry again. They played parlor games after dinner, they rode together, they read Jo’s ridiculous girlish plays to each other out loud in the library. Every day, there was a new scheme, whether it was picking apples and eating them without ceremony, sprawled on the grass, or deciding to spend the day by the river.
Jo was spending more time with her older sister than she ever had in her life, and it was good for her heart. But no matter how peaceful their days were, she could not bring herself to talk to her sister about Laurie’s proposal. She could not face it. Neither that or the kiss.
Kisses.
There had been many.
And their memory was almost as vibrant and delicious as they themselves had been. Jo remembered every second, every movement, every labored breath.
She relived them over and over in her head every night. And every waking hour. She caught herself fantasizing about them more and more frequently, and she tried to keep herself increasingly busy in order to avoid the thoughts.
But they wouldn’t go away, no matter what she did.
Some days she wondered if she had imagined it all—if it had happened in reality. And with every passing day, she could not persuade herself that it had.
Before they went to sleep, Jo had started reluctantly reading to them her new writings. She read them her letters to Beth—and not only the ones that included her news. The other ones. The deep, dark ones, the ones she had written alone, the long ones where she had poured her changing, empty soul out. They sounded sadder and more hopeful at the same time when read out loud. Her sister and her husband listened carefully, but made no comment as yet.
Jo herself found that these were her first writings she did not entirely despise. She wrote more, after the couple had gone to bed. She wrote to Amy as usual, and Amy’s letters turned nostalgic when she read how they were carrying on in Orchard Hall.
It was indeed a happy, busy time. Some nights, Jo was even too busy to write, an unthinkable occurrence until a week ago. She observed her sister: she was blissfully happy. Jo had never seen her like this. She had always thought Margaret to be a naturally beautiful person, both inside and out, but now she has this peace flowing from her. She was glowing, and it was all Sainted John’s doing.
One evening, after dinner, she asked him why they had decided to stay in the country, with her, instead of at their London house, close to their London friends.
“So that you would not be alone,” said he.
Jo had not thought such a man existed outside of books. It made her reconsider her views upon the entirety of humanity.
…
Meg was quietly happy and thriving, Jo was finally resting and eating enough, and Sainted John was living up to his name.
And then, things took a turn.
Not for the worse or for the better, but for the absolutely mad.
First came the men.
Literal hordes of gentlemen—well, not hordes, but there were definitely more than two, three even—eligible bachelors that Sainted John kept inviting to dinner in his quiet, unassuming way, trying to see if Jo would be interested in any of them. She had told him time and again that she was not looking for a husband, but he, bless his soul, kept trying.
But she could not find it in her heart to be angry with him—she who was angry with everyone. Because at the same time, he was encouraging her to write, and reading her every letter to Beth once she’d finished it with increasing ardor every evening.
And then, something much worse happened.
…
It was two weeks since the happy couple had established themselves at Orchard Hall, two weeks full of games and laughter and strange gentlemen sitting at the dinner table. One night, after Jo had read them her latest letter to Beth, one that spoke of how loss was the direct result of love, and thus, a treasure, she caught him sniffling.
Upon further inspection, it turned out that he was crying. Crying.
“Is anything the matter?”
Jo asked him, alarmed. Her sister had left the room briefly, and suddenly, Jo was anxious for her to return.
“These letters, they have helped me so much,”
John said.
“I have had a hard time dealing with the loss of my dear mother and one of my siblings a few years ago. I have been carrying it heavily in my heart ever since, and tonight, as you read, was the first time that the weight was lifted. Bless you, Josephine, you have a way with words.”
Jo was struck speechless for a few seconds.
“Thank you, Sir John,”
she said at last.
“I had not thought that my silly scribblings could help another human soul through the greatest ordeal one has to face on this earth, grief.”
Sainted John was nodding to her every word; Meg reentered the room, and Jo sagged in relief. He shall surely stop crying now, she thought. He didn’t.
“I have been writing to my sister in my loneliness,”
Jo went on, when he stayed silent, tears coursing down his cheeks. She glanced at her sister, she was watching her carefully.
“I have been doing it for years. It soothes the pain in some way. It releases all my thoughts.”
John dabbed at his eyes. Jo waited.
“Your words are sharp like a rapier’s blade,”
he said eventually.
“They strike where it matters. Right to the soul.”
“John, dear, you are being too melodramatic,”
Meg said, taking his arm, “we wouldn’t want to give her any airs now.”
She turned to Jo.
“He is right, of course. That is exactly how your words are, Jo. As if flowers were weapons.”
“That is an awful metaphor,”
Jo said. She had never been moved so in her life.
“I am sorry,”
Sainted John said, not meeting her eyes.
“Your metaphor wasn’t that bad,”
Jo turned to him, “what are you sorry for?”
“I was not apologizing for my metaphor…”
He appeared to be scrambling for words.
“For something else entirely.”
“What now?”
Jo asked, sinking into a settee.
“More men?”
John bent down his head, something Jo had never seen him do. His cheeks grew red, and sudden fear seized her. What had the man gone and done now?
“Much worse,” he said.
“Nothing could be worse than men,”
Jo retorted, but she felt the blood drain from her face. What on earth has the lovable idiot done? He looks as if he wants the earth to swallow him up.
“Tell her, John,”
Meg prodded.
Slowly, but surely, Jo was beginning to become entirely enraged.
“You are in on it too?”
she turned to her sister.
“Tell me this instant!”
“Forgive me,”
John said again. It appeared that he was crying again.
“It is perfectly human to cry,”
Jo said, feeling completely lost.
“Even for a gentleman.”
Sainted John chuckled wetly.
“Not about that, my dear,”
he said, and motioned for me to sit by him on the sofa.
“I… I have done something.”
“Well, what is it?”
Jo asked, exasperated.
“I… I…”
He clung to Meg’s hand until his knuckles turned white.
“Your sister was aware of my doings, and gave her heartfelt blessing to them, but now that I am about to tell you, I see that she is silent. The task falls to me.”
For him to express a slight criticism of Meg, even in jest, the situation must be dire indeed. Jo grit her teeth, bracing herself.
“Tell me,” she said.
And he did.
Dear Beth,
You are never going to believe what the sweet, idiotic man our sister married has done.
He took all those letters I have been writing to you to a publisher, without even telling me. Of course, he did not take any personal letters, not like this one, containing my news and personal… musings. He had Meg look through all those letters I write to you at midnights, the ones where I pour out all my grief and hope and longing. The ones following the little light.
Together, Meg and Sainted John scrapped any personal information from them, like my name, and are getting them published. John says they help him tremendously—I have been reading them out loud to him and Meg every evening.
It turns out, the publisher loved them so much, he wants to publish them in a bound book! Can you believe it? Apparently, he wants the book to circulate by Christmas (impossible, I know), and thus it was very urgent that John speak to me this very evening. He was scared to death of my reaction.
I was delighted.
I am delighted. I am sort of frightened of course, at the idea of so many eyes perusing my innermost thoughts, but there is always the hope that the book won’t sell. On the other hand, if it does sell, as the publisher seems to believe, if it sells a lot of copies, it might help more people through grief dark such as mine.
I cannot object to that.
The only thing that makes me sad is that, no matter how many copies they sell, my writing will never reach the one person I really want to help, our brother. No one can reach him now.
Things are going well, Beth. Really well.
I am no longer alone, and maybe in a month or two, I will have a book published. Soon, there will be nieces and nephews, judging by the way our sister and her husband look at each other.
Laurie’s absence will forever be a gaping hole in my heart, but the rest of me is growing. I hope that eventually that hole is not the only thing that exists in my heart.
The book is going to be titled ‘Dear Beth’.
Eternally,
Your sister