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The Christmas card arrives sometime on the twentieth, and Carol is the first to get it. The name on top of the letter seems vaguely familiar—one Esther Nicolas Strully—though she can’t quite remember where the name comes from, or why it sounds so familiar. She searches the back of her mind for two seconds (it can’t be anyone that Carol knows, because the envelope isn’t addressed to her), then gives up, throwing the letter atop of their other mail.
“There’s something for you,” Carol says to Therese as she walks through the door. “From Connecticut, of all places. Can you imagine?”
Carol expects Therese’s features to soften, for her weariness to wash away. But instead, she looks more resigned, maybe a little angry. “Is it spam mail?” she asks cautiously, allowing Carol to take her coat. “I can’t imagine why anyone from Connecticut would want to send me anything.”
“Personalized letter,” Carol responds simply.
As soon as Therese rushes to the counter, Carol realizes who Esther is, and bites down on her tongue. If she’d realized sooner, then perhaps she’d have thrown the letter away, never looking at it, never mentioning it to Therese. Sometimes it’s better to lie, to throw away evidence. In this case, it was definitely so.
“My mother,” Therese breathes. She’s silent for a few moments, and Carol is left to helplessly watch. Therese’s expression goes through a multitude of different feelings at once, before she finally settles on confusion. “How did she get the mailing address?”
Carol half-expects Therese to turn on her with an accusing finger. “When I promised that I wouldn’t mention her name again, I meant it. I only know her name, Therese.”
“I wasn’t… I’m not blaming you,” Therese says, frustration lacing the edges of her voice. Carol can take a few guesses as to what Therese is thinking. That she wants to disappear again, that she might want to go to Connecticut and yell at her mother. “The only people I’ve told are Richard and Dannie, and I know Richard wouldn’t go that far.”
Therese thinks, puts the letter back down on the counter.
“You’re not going to open it?”
“Would you believe me if I said I was afraid of what’s in it?”
Carol shrugged. “The intent might not be malicious. You won’t know until you open it.”
“She must have gotten this address from the Catholic school,” Therese says, going to the far end of the room to look for the letter opener. Her grip around it looks tighter than usual, and Carol finally steps next to her, gently placing her hands on Therese’s shoulders. “Or did she find me through the Times ? I don’t know how she’d know that I work there, or how she’d even be able to get my address… Do you think she would have stopped by New York at some point? Maybe on vacation, or something… But this isn’t exactly a hotspot for vacationing, especially not during the winter, and they didn’t publish my mailing address until… God, I don’t know when? I’m so sorry, Carol.”
“Honey, you’re rambling.”
Therese sighs and opens the envelope somewhat ruefully. “God, I don’t want to read it. I don’t want to read it, Carol, I really do not.”
“I know you don’t,” Carol coos, rubbing her thumbs over the top of Therese’s dress. “Let’s just see what she wants, and then we can ignore her, and we’ll never speak of this again.”
She seems to relax, if only slightly, and then pulls out a card from the envelope. It’s a store-bought Christmas card, Carol notes, though the scrawling done on the inside is done with some sort of golden pen. Pretentious, Carol thinks. Therese begins to read the letter out loud, pausing only to dote on the words.
“ To my dearest Therese. Line break. There’s a lot I could say here. I have made some mistakes in my life, and leaving you to that school was one of my finest. I could make up excuses, say you looked like your father, or that we were never that well off financially, but I think you know well enough as I do. So I will not say anything. Write back if you wish. Or don’t. Merry Christmas. I love you. End.”
And then Therese begins to cry. “I shouldn’t have opened the letter. I shouldn’t have done it. I knew I was going to hate it, I was going to hate whatever she was saying. I don’t want to cry again, Carol.”
Despite all of Therese’s changes from their first meeting to now, Carol finds that this part of Therese is the same. She is sensitive, far too focused on the present and herself to think of the people she leaves behind. Carol makes her put the card down. “You don’t have to write a damn thing back to her, Therese. Not one damn thing.”
Therese sniffs and the tears are gone. “Yes, you’re right.” She repeats the words again. “I don’t know why… Why I act like this.”
“Humans are complex,” Carol supplies, gently dragging a hand over Therese’s back. “You may never know why we tick. It’s best not to think of that now.”
“You don’t think she’ll write to us again if I don’t send anything back?”
Carol shakes her head. It seems as though this is a one-time thing, perhaps she wants to make peace for the years of Therese’s life she condemned to solemnity. “No. And if she does, we don’t have to open it.”
Therese asks if they could keep the letter stuffed in one of the drawers they never opened. It’s left there for a while, for the both of them to forget about.
(Except for Therese, it’s always lingering in the back of her mind.)