LOST AND FOUND

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[The Secret Letter Mary J. A. Gould

The bare wooden steps left an imprint in the dust as Shelly went up to the attic. It had been years. Dead flies lay on the window sills at both ends of the attic, and on the end wall still hung the drawing slate her father had put up when she was ten. She remembered being in the garage, watching him measure and cut the wood into a frame, then carrying it to the attic and nailing it to the wall.
Strewn over the floor was an assortment of boxes, covered with dust, that would have to be opened, sorted and their contents discarded in some way. Sitting on an ancient steamer trunk, she pulled several boxes about her feet, slipping into the memories of her childhood as if they were a pair of comfortable shoes.
She had spent so many happy hours here, playing on the floor of this big room that ran the length of the house. Even on chilly winter days, she would open the steel grate of the register in the middle of the floor so that warmth from the coal furnace in the basement warmed the room. Over by the chimney was a large table where Shelly had perfected her painting and drawing techniques, read comic books, and played board games with her much older sister, who married and moved away when she was five. And her friend, Jean.
Taking one of the boxes on her lap, a string pulled her heart into the past. Opening the flaps, she couldn't help but laugh. Thinking of the Antiques show on television she wondered if the Roy Rogers ranch set would be worth something. Could she let go of these things? As she picked up the plastic horses, the Minnie Mouse handkerchief, and the book of school photographs, her mood shifted.
There was Jean. She'd had a girlfriend in school back then. The closest friend she'd had in her life up to that point. Shelly was insecure, and Jean was someone she trusted. Yet her Mom didn't like Jean, calling her "wild" because of the way she talked and the things she did. One weekend in late spring, Shelly’s mom caught Jean kissing one of the neighbor boys in the barn and told her to call her mother to come get her.
Their friendship ended badly, with harsh words and aching feelings of betrayal, because Shelly had told Jean she had a crush on that boy herself.
On the last day of school she was to tell Jean that her parents would not allow her to come and stay weekends like she had the previous year. Deciding not to confront Jean directly, Shelly got out a pen and paper and wrote a letter.
She never heard from Jean again.
As Shelly recalled her feelings of resentment and unfairness, she set the toys and photos aside and picked up a shoebox full of papers. There were receipts that her parents, evidently, had thought important enough to keep, legal papers, deeds for funeral plots, and letters. As she turned them over, she discovered that some were quite old, dating back to before the turn of the century when this house was built. On the bottom of the box was a small book, tied with a green ribbon and covered in a white paper. On the cover, Mom's youthful handwriting: "Tender and True." She opened the book and read a poem or two. Lost romance, friendship, the wonder of nature and the endurance of love. She thought again of Jean, wondering whatever had happened to her.
With a slap she closed the book and was about to set it in the “keep” pile when she saw beneath it an unopened envelope with familiar handwriting but an unfamiliar name, addressed to her. With curiosity she tried the flap, but the glue, being all of twenty years old, stuck fast. Tearing the end, she pulled out a lined sheet of paper. It was from Jean, dated a year after they graduated, and read:
Dear Shelly:
I have been doing a lot of thinking--and I know your Mom was right. Though we were friends for six years, I was a bad friend. After your Mom yelled at me in the barn, and Jimmy ran away, I did some other bad things. You remember Paul, from school? Well, I got pregnant, and Paul and I got married, but I didn’t love him. Look, I really didn’t want to go into a lot of stuff about after you and I stopped being friends—I guess I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I always looked up to you. You were the good girl I could never be and I envied you. I guess what I’m trying to say is that all that being pregnant made me aware of what my real responsibility was in life. Then I lost the baby. Anyway, it hurt so bad I thought about you, and I started to pray. I never did that before. And it made me feel really small. You know, like, humble. Anyway, I’m not the same as I was back then, and I’d love to have a second chance to be your friend. Your real friend. If your Mom will let me, and if you will let me.
Again, I’m sorry for hurting you.
Love,
Jean
The years slid away like the tears on her face. She turned the envelope over to see the return address. Resentment at her mother’s secret welled up. But her mother was gone, now, too.
Downstairs, Shelly looked in the phone directory. She couldn’t find Jean, but Jean’s parents still lived in town. She punched the numbers, and a light voice said “Hello?”
“Hello. Jean?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“You won’t believe it. It’s Shelly. From school.”
She could hear the smile in her voice. “Shelly!”
“Yeah,” she hesitated. “I finally got your letter.”]
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