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Dear Peter,
I hope this letter finds you well, it’s been so long since we last spoke.
Yes, it had been over 10 years since Peter had last spoken to his sister.
He thought things would change after the accident. Susan had stopped going to parties, spending more time with Peter as he recovered. Leaning on each other for support as they lowered their family into the ground.
But it didn’t take long before it all changed again.
They had been staying with their aunt and uncle. Susan had taken on a job as a secretary for some politician and seemed to quite enjoy it.
“You meet so many exciting people!” she had said. Peter had just forced a smile, noting the familiar change in Susan once again.
Still, they spent their nights at home, sharing stories about their younger siblings. Like the time Lucy mixed up the salt and sugar while baking, resulting in a rather awful tasting apple pie – which Edmund still ate every piece of.
Peter could even mention Narnia and their adventures there without Susan protesting or dismissing it all as a make believe again.
He truly thought he could get through to his younger sister, make her come back to them and Aslan once again. But the more he spoke of Narnia, the more he could see it; Susan fighting the urge to sigh or roll her eyes and it didn’t take too long before she was pushed to her limit.
A shouting match ensued and hurtful things were said.
The weeks after they seemed to do everything in their power to avoid speaking to one another around the house. Susan started going out with her friends again, more so than before.
Sometime she would try to get Peter to come along. A chance to reconcile, maybe?
“You should come with,” she would say, “It would do you good, and I know that Kathleen is eagerly waiting for you to join us.”
Peter would always shake his head, tell her to have fun and go back to whatever he was doing. This continued on until Peter decided to move back to Oxford. Being around a Susan who refused to believe in their old life made him feel more lonely than ever and he couldn’t take it anymore.
They still spoke. A letter here, a phone call there. Sometimes they even met up at a café if they had the time. But it was never the same as before.
At 22, Susan met Grant. He was the nephew of the Susan’s employer, a man who would become a British consular to the United States. She now had less time for her brother, but they still spoke every now and then.
The final nail in the coffin, the day they stopped speaking all together, were just a few days before Susan’s wedding.
In the year that Susan and Grant had been seeing each other, Peter hadn’t met the man more than one handful of times. In fact, he’s pretty sure he only actually talked to him twice. They had come over to Peter’s flat, to discuss the upcoming wedding, and Grant had noticed a picture of Edmund and Lucy together with their older siblings.
“Are these your cousins?” he had asked innocently. Peter, confused, had corrected him.
“No, that’s my brother and sister.”
Grant had gone red in embarrassment and Susan had pursed her lips.
“I– I’m sorry… I didn’t– I knew your family… um… Susan never really–“ Grant could barely string a full sentence together, but it was clear to Peter what he was trying to say.
“You never told him about them?!” Peter wasn’t sure what he was feeling at that moment. Anger? Disappointment? Fear? Sadness? Maybe all and more.
“Do you think they’re just going to disappear if you ignore them?!”
“They are gone, Peter! Forgive me for trying to move on with my life!”
“By denying they ever existed?!”
Grant did his best to defuse the situation. Saying he was the one who made the mistake and that Susan had plenty of family albums that he had never looked through. But the damage was already done and the fight only escalated. It was as if every single feeling the two siblings had repressed came bubbling to the surface.
In the end Grant had to practically drag Susan out of there, all while again asking Peter for forgiveness and that he still hoped he would see him at the wedding.
Peter did go. How could he not?
But after that, all communications were cut.
Peter didn’t reach out to Susan, and Susan didn’t reach out to him.
And that’s how it stayed for over 10 years.
In hindsight, Peter knew it was unfair of accusing his sister of trying to erase their younger siblings from her mind. Grief made people do weird and crazy things, he saw that nearly everyday.
I miss you.
I’ve missed you everyday since I last saw you. I know I should have reached out, but truthfully I feared you would never want to hear from me. I still fear it, in fact.
Part of me always hoped you would invite me to your wedding. Imagine my surprise when Aunt Alberta told me you were already married, and have children no less!
He would have, if he knew she would’ve come.
A little over year after Susan married, she and Grant moved. A low position had opened up at the British embassy in the United States, and Grant hadn’t been able to say no. It was a great opportunity after all. It paid off. Grant had excelled and they remain in a nice house in The States even 10 years later, if Aunt Alberta were to be trusted.
Peter never knew how often his sister visited her old home, and at the time of his wedding they had already gone 4 years without speaking. It just seemed easier to not invite her.
In fact, they barely invited anyone. His aunt and uncle, her mother and brother, and a couple of friends. It was just how they wanted it.
Peggy had been the sister of one of Peter’s classmates at medical school. She didn’t think it was silly how strongly he was holding on to the memory of his late siblings, she had lost her father and an older cousin in the war and knew the grief all too well. She never minded being there if he needed to talk, or listening to his stories, whether she believed them or not.
But nonetheless, Peter still regretted not inviting his sister. Now he fully believes that she would have done everything in her power to be there.
I do hope I could meet them one day. I know my own children would like to meet their cousins.
I don’t blame you for not inviting me, I understand. We didn’t leave on a good note after all.
But I miss you, Peter. I miss you all so much.
Have you been to see them lately? I wish I could. I have their pictures next to a vase of chrysanthemums. They were always Lucy’s favourite.
Here he sighs. Of course he has been to see them, he sees them every month. Rain or shine, he travels to the cemetery with fresh flowers. He shares updates on his life, his family, even if there is no one there to listen. It makes him feel better; to act as if they a truly there, listening and answering.
No one ever questions it. Well… except for Uncle Harold. But Peter has caught him more than once speaking to Eustace as if he was still there.
It’s nice to see that Susan still cares. Even if he knew better, he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t worried that she would erase them from her life. It was the thing that started this whole ordeal after all.
It proved that his gentle sister was still there, even if she couldn’t remember that part herself.
There is so much I want to say to you, so many stories I would like to share. But first, I want to apologise.
I’m sorry, Peter. For everything.
For the fight. For how I acted. For forgetting…
The day of the train crash will forever be the worst day of my life. When they knocked on our door and told me what had happened to our family. Oh how I wish it never happened.
I know it doesn’t compare to what you went through that day, but it still destroyed me, and I took that out on you when you needed me the most. I am truly sorry for that.
But I lost them too, Peter. Please remember that.
I didn’t get to say goodbye to Lucy.
I barely got to say goodbye to Edmund.
I do not wish to say goodbye to you too, if I don’t have to.
She’s right, it doesn’t compare, and Peter is glad that it doesn’t. He would never, no matter what, want his sister to go through what he did.
He remembers darkness, smoke, heat and a roar. He remembers the pain, how every movement caused his body to scream out in agony, the feeling of blood running down the side of his face. But more than anything, he remembers seeing his little brother, lying broken beneath rubble.
Suddenly, Peter’s own pain and injuries didn’t matter, and he scrambled over the best he could to his brother.
Somehow Peter managed to clear away most of the debris and gathered Edmund in his arms. By some miracle, he was still breathing, and Peter said a silent thank you to Aslan.
Edmund too had blood running down his face. His clothes were torn, his skin was scrapped, cut and bruised, and, by the look of his left arm, his shoulder dislocated. Peter didn’t even dare to look at his legs.
Regardless, this was not the worst condition Peter had seen his brother in.
Back in Narnia, Edmund would somehow always find himself in the worst place at the worst time. Peter had lost count at how many times his little brother would put himself between Peter and an enemy’s weapon. Peter would scold him every time, of course. It didn’t matter if Edmund was one of the best, if not the best, swordsman in Narnia. He was not invincible and needed to stop acting like his life held no value.
In the end, it had been Susan who managed to put a stop to it. Threatening to never let Edmund out of her sight ever again, and they all knew she meant it.
But it was different this time.
This time, as they laid on the ground surrounded by fire and smoke, there was no magic cordial that could heal any and every injury. This time, all Peter could do was to hold his brother in his arms as Edmund tried to open his eyes, or as he coughed and stained his lips with blood. All he could do was to assure his little brother that everything would be alright. Someone would come along soon and help them.
And by Aslan’s grace they did.
Peter wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there before some men found them. They helped carry them out and get the two brothers to a hospital, and Peter really did think everything was going to be alright. For one short moment he did.
It was Susan who had to tell him about Lucy and their parents.
He doesn’t remember much from how he reacted, almost like his brain was trying to block it out, not that he minded. He remembers the tightness in his chest, the feeling of wanting to scream but nothing ever made it out. He remembers crying alone after Susan went to check on Edmund since he couldn’t.
Then they lost Edmund.
It had been on Peter’s second day at the hospital. Susan had been sitting by his bedside, helping him with something Peter could no longer remember, when Uncle Harold and one of the doctors had come in. Somber looks on both their faces.
The doctor explained it; too much internal damage, a pierced lung, crushed bones and organs, head trauma. It was a miracle that Edmund had made it as far as he did.
Susan had screamed.
She had gripped Peter’s hand so hard he feared that too would break, and she had thrown herself in his arms and sobbed. Peter had felt numb. There was no tightness this time. There was nothing, nothing except tears running down his cheeks. He remembers Susan saying something but the words were lost to him. His little brother was gone. Gone. It was the last thought he had before darkness overtook him.
He woke up a few hours later, Susan still next to him, her eyes red and still filled with tears. They had leaned on each other so much back then, what changed?
Peter knew he shouldn’t have pushed Susan has hard as he did back then, but still, when did she stop thinking she couldn’t come to him with her problems, fears and worry? Even when Peter didn’t speak of Narnia, Susan seemed to snap over everything. If Peter had to guess now, he assumed it had to do with resentment.
He was the one who had been with their family when they died. He was the one who had to sit for an unspeakable amount of time with his dying brother in his arms. He went through something Susan did not.
Peter understood better now, he hadn’t back then. Susan, dear Susan, knew what pain her brother had gone through, and most likely felt that her own pain didn’t measure up. She hadn’t been there, so she’d felt like she had to put on a brave face and be there for her brother. She bottled everything up, but one can only do that for so long, and when it bursts you never know what’s going to bubble up to the surface.
Her pain was, and still is, as valid as Peter’s. Could she still not see that?
The thought saddened Peter greatly, and he was sure both Edmund and Lucy would have something colourful to say to him for missing it in the first place.
You’re the only one I have left who truly remembers them, the only one who can help me keep them alive and any way, shape, or form.
I’ve been doing my best. I tell my children all the tales of Narnia and the Kings and Queens who ruled it. I tell them all the stories of your bravery, Edmund’s wit and Lucy’s everlasting faith. I tell them about Aslan and his sacrifice, and with a little help, I found Him.
I found Him, Peter. Here, in our own world!
When I did, there was no one I wanted to speak to more than you. There’s so much I want to say, things I could never fit in one letter.
So I beg you, please forgive me. I never should have forgotten. I never should have dismissed it all as make believe. I know how I hurt you all by doing so, and I will regret it for the rest of my life.
But please, I want my older brother back.
I love you, I always will, no matter what.
All my love, Susan, the Gentle.
Had Peter not been sitting down he surely would have fallen.
Out of all the things he expected to hear from his sister, this was probably last on the list. He is not surprised that Susan is telling the stories of Narnia, he does the same with his own children.
But Susan found Him.
She found Him.
His eyes began to sting with tears. His sister was back.
Oh how he wished Lucy was here to see it. It had crushed her so when Susan declared Narnia to be make believe, and she was the one had tried the hardest to make Susan remember again. How many nights had she spent crying because she failed? Just think how she would smile if she knew.
Perhaps she did. She never lost hope after all.
Peter put down the letter and leaned back in his chair. Where would he even start?
How do you apologise for causing your sister so much pain? How do you tell her how sorry you are that you made her think that she couldn’t rely on you? That even if she never found Aslan again, even if she did want to forget, she was still his sister and he would love her forever.
Susan seemed to have the most logical answer, she always did.
So, he picked up his pen and began to write.
Dear Susan,