Page 29 of The Lies We Leave Behind

29

William

Seattle 2003

The book lay on the table between us. It was brown leather. Worn. No title across the front or along the binding, just some floral markings etched along the border, the edges of the pages yellowed with age.

I looked to Selene and she stared back, an expectant look in her clear blue eyes.

“What is it?” I asked, leaning forward and resting my forearm on the table. I’d never seen it before, but for some reason my fingers itched to touch it. To feel the soft leather. To open the cover and reveal what was inside.

“It’s a journal.”

“Whose journal?”

But I knew before she said—

“Kate’s.”

Silence stretched between us, the sounds in the house, the footsteps and muffled voices of my daughter and granddaughter, the traffic out front, the noise of the world...stopped. A rushing sound filled my ears as I stared down at the book again.

“From when?” I whispered.

“The first entry is early November,” she said. “Nineteen forty-four.”

I pulled in a breath and sat back in my seat, my gaze moving to the view. A seagull gliding across the sky. The water beyond. A ferry coming in to dock.

The fall of 1944 was when a different kind of silence fell over me. My platoon fought mercilessly, pushing the Germans back, our guns discharging as we ran forward, shouting, grunting, crying out as they fired back, their bullets whizzing by, clipping our jackets, our helmets, our hands. Taking pieces of us with them if they didn’t bury inside our bodies completely. But as I ran, ducked, jumped, and skidded to the dirt, taking cover, rolling into ditches and diving behind trees, rocks, and overturned and burned-out vehicles, I heard none of it, my mind on Kate and the response that still hadn’t come.

I was worried. Sick with dread. My brain told me she was gone. Dead. Her plane home had maybe crashed. Or if she’d taken a boat, maybe it had capsized. All my inquiries to comrades who might’ve heard something about those things happening though brought no information. And so, while my head still urged me to get on with it, my heart told me to hang on another day.

I placed my hand on the journal. The cover was soft, pliable, and I could imagine what her hands had looked like as they’d pulled this particular book from the shelf, admiring the tiny flowers, flipping the pages, her head dipping as she took in the scent of them.

My breath caught as I opened the cover and saw her name, written in her handwriting, on the front page. Eyes blurred, I looked away, afraid a tear might fall and mar the paper.

“Are you okay?” Selene asked.

I nodded and sniffed.

“Please excuse me,” I said. “It’s just that, at the time she wrote this, I thought she must have died. I’m not sure... I guess I don’t know what to feel. I’m glad she was alive, but I want to know why she never wrote. And yet, I’m afraid to. Even this many years later, after living a happy and satisfying life, I’ve always wondered. I searched...” I shook my head as the memories bubbled to the surface. “I continued to send letters to the address she’d given me. I even sent one to her aunt. But there was never a response. Even after decades had passed I searched, using the internet every few years or so to see if there was an obituary or an article. Something—anything to tell me what had happened to her. But there was nothing.”

I looked down at the journal again and ran my fingers over her name.

“And now, here she is. And I’m afraid.” I met Selene’s eyes again. “Are the answers in this book?”

“There are answers, yes. But it may create more questions at first. And she only wrote in it for a short time. I think, if you read it, you’ll understand why.”

I flipped the pages then, feeling the soft edges of the paper beneath my thumb, watching words go by until there were no more. She’d only filled about a third of the journal and I wondered why she’d stopped writing. Was it too hard? Was she too sad? Maybe she met someone else and no longer needed to write about whatever was in this book?

I sighed and went back to the beginning, running my finger once more over her name.

“Would you like me to give you some space?” Selene asked.

“Maybe?” I said, not quite knowing what I needed in this moment.

She smiled and scooted her chair back, getting to her feet.

“May I?” she asked, pointing to the sprawling yard below.

“Of course.”

As she passed me on her way to the stairs, she placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

I watched her as she descended the staircase, slipping off her sandals and stepping barefoot into the grass, a smile on her face as she wandered my late wife’s blooming garden filled with yellows, pinks, and lavenders. For the briefest of moments she reminded me of Emma, but then I blinked and the resemblance I thought I’d seen was gone.

I looked back down at the journal and turned the page.

“November 1, 1944,” the first entry began.

It has been a long time since I kept a journal, the last one filled with the silly hopes and dreams of a twelve-year-old me, hidden, of course, from my mother’s ever-prying eyes. But as I saw the bags of letters, dozens of them waiting to be burned behind the post office like the many still smoldering in the corner, I realized I should be documenting what I have seen during my time witnessing this terrible war. It is my duty to accurately describe the horrors and injustices. If not for others to know, then for myself to never forget what I will hopefully overcome.

The letters... My heart was heavy at the sight of them. Bags upon bags, stuffed with letters that were either never sent, or received and not delivered. Yet another tactic to separate, confuse, and extinguish hope. Which was what I felt when I saw them, my mind immediately going to William and the many letters I’d written and sent. Or thought I’d sent. But had they suffered the same fate as these?

My chest rose with a long inhale. She had written me. I was confused though. Why would a post office in Manhattan not deliver letters?

I glanced down to the yard. Selene was sitting on one of the stone benches, her eyes closed, head tipped back, the sun on her face.

Getting to my feet, I stood at the rail.

“Why would a post office in Manhattan burn letters?” I shouted.

She turned and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Is that all you’ve read?” she shouted back.

“So far.”

“Did you not turn the page?”

“You said it might create more questions. I...have a question. It makes no sense that a New York post office would burn letters. It’s against the law to tamper with mail. I don’t—”

“William.”

“Yes?”

“Turn the page!”

I looked down at the book and turned the page. What I read next nearly made my heart stop.

“November 2, 1944—Hamburg, Germany.”

I looked back to Selene.

“What the hell was she doing in Germany?”