Short Story #3
We held another short story writing party: 45 minutes to write a complete story based on the prompt. This month's prompt: A Christmas letter arrives 50 years late. I apologize for any typos or errors; I didn't read over it. Got too many things to do to edit short stories at the moment. Enjoy.
*
“This came for you in the mail,” Tom said, tossing a card-shaped envelope at Cora. Snatching it from the air, she stared at the object. It was made from paper--actual paper.
“From the postal service?” she asked her husband, looking up.
“Guess someone really loves you,” he said.
But who?
It had been a decade their-time since Cora and Tom departed the Malady, having left planet earth to build a new life on the recently-terraformed planet of New End. Married later in life, they didn’t have any family holding them on Earth, and the few friends they had weren’t enough to keep them there. Moving away seemed like a great way to begin their life together, and since they didn’t have any ties left on earth, the prospect of cryo-sleep for forty years didn’t bother them because nobody would miss them.
Anyone who would pen an actual note to Cora was long dead.
“Open it, love,” Tom said. “It’s Christmas. Maybe some school group found a list of names and addresses and wrote Christmas cards to lonely terraformers.”
“But I’m not lonely,” Cora said, still staring at the envelope. “I have you.”
Tom shrugged. “They wouldn’t know that.”
Flipping it over, Cora carefully tugged at the sealed envelope, making a jagged tear across the top, and pulled out a Christmas card. The front depicted a winter wonderland, the myriad trees strung with lights as children built snowmen and lobbed snowballs at each other. In the top corner Santa’s sleigh was riding off into the moon. Merry Christmas in gold was written across the top.
Nose scrunched in confusion, Cora opened the card, and a piece of paper covered in writing fell into her lap. Lifting the fallen paper, she froze. She recognized the handwriting. It belonged to her best friend, Landon, a man she hadn’t seen in nearly a lifetime.
“Who’s it from?” Tom asked, coming over to place his hand on her shoulder.
Hurriedly stuffing the paper back in the card and shoving that back in the envelope, she said, “Nobody.” Tossing the card in the wastepaper basket, she pushed away from Tom and made her way outside.
She didn’t know how the card found its way to her home. It shouldn’t have, considering Landon had been dead for a decade before she married Tom and moved away.
*
At dinner that night, the card was sitting on her plate. Cora leveled a look at her husband, who pretended he didn’t notice. “I threw that away,” she informed him, picking the card up to do so again.
“And I fished it back out,” Tom said in his infuriatingly calm voice. “You should read it.”
“Did you see who it was from?”
“Yes.”
And he still gave it back to her.
Tom and Landon had a complicated relationship. They’d never met, Landon having died years before Cora found Tom, but Tom disliked the man all the same. Landon hadn’t done anything to earn that ire--it all stemmed from Cora. Landon had been her best friend since before she could talk. They grew up together, went through puberty together, attended high school and college together. Where there was Landon, Cora would be. Where Cora was, Landon was always nearby.
It was inevitable that someone would fall in love, and everyone expected it would be both of them. To Cora’s everlasting regret, it had only been one of them. Landon had been an extension of herself since day one, and it never once occurred to her to think of him as anything else until he couldn’t hold it in any longer and professed his love for her. Shell-shocked, she’d muttered out a thank you and bolted.
Everything changed after that. It was hard not to, when a confession of love was rejected. She wanted things to remain the same, but Landon couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore, and every time she tried to talk to him he mumbled some excuse about having other things to do. If she’d known that was going to be the response, she would have lied and said she loved him, too. A person could grow to romantically love someone else, right? And it would have been worth it to keep him by her side.
But then the rational side of her brain would kick in and remind her that she didn’t love him that way, and as much as she regretted losing his friendship, she couldn’t regret telling the truth.
Life was hard and things were strained between them after that, to the point that Cora seriously considered confessing love just to get things to return to normal. But on her way to do so, tragedy struck and Landon was killed in a hit and run.
Cora was devastated. She’d crawled into bed for a year and tried to cry herself into an early grave. She missed everything about him, from the soft way he said her name to the lost look in his eyes after she rejected him. By the time she came out on the other side of her grief, she’d elevated him to sainthood in her own mind.
When she met Tom, everything fell into place. He was so kind, good, and gentle that she couldn’t help but fall in love with him. His goodness reminded her of Landon, which quickly became a sore spot in their relationship. “I can’t compete with a ghost,” Tom once told her sadly, and she hadn’t known what to do because he wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t competing because, at least in her mind, her heart had never belonged to Landon.
It took several years to come to a point where she didn’t mention Landon with every other breath and Tom no longer felt threatened by a dead man, at which time they finally wed and moved to New End. Starting over in a place with no memories had only helped their relationship. And even though Cora still missed Landon every day, she didn’t mention him much.
A physical card from him brought back a rush of memories and feelings she didn’t want to deal with. She and Tom deserved more than that. “You can’t possibly be okay with this,” she said accusingly, pointing at Tom with her fork.
Tom shrugged. “A card from a dead man is hard to ignore. I don’t have to be okay with it to be curious. Maybe it will be good for you to read.”
“It shouldn’t be here,” she said. “He was dead before we met, dead before we moved. How did it find me here?”
“Who knows?” Tom said. “Maybe he wrote it in Heaven and an angel delivered it. Maybe he wrote it before he died and his mom found it in his things and sent it to you. Maybe someone’s playing a sick practical joke. The only way to find out is to read it.” Taking the card out of her hand, Tom pulled out the paper, gently unfolded it, and handed it to her. “Read it,” he commanded softly.
Dear Cora
Ra-Ra!
Hey loser butt
I don’t know why it’s so hard to address this thing. I used to see you every day; you’d think I’d know what to call you by now.
It’s been a few months, and I’m sorry I haven’t been talking to you. I just...well, I thought we wanted the same things. We don’t, and that’s okay. It is.
I miss you. I miss the stupid jokes I crack that you don’t laugh at, and the even stupider jokes you crack that I do laugh at. I miss watching movies together and analyzing them to death and then quoting them for the next six weeks. I miss your running commentary on everyone we come across, and I miss telling you about my day.
I miss you.
I’m sorry.
It’s Christmas; can we put this behind us, at least long enough to eat Christmas dinner together? I can’t imagine the holiday without you, and… I want you to meet someone. Someone special. You’re going to hate her, but I want you to meet her anyway. I want both the girls in my life to know each other.
You’re an incredible person, Cora. We’re going to make it through this, and we’ll come out stronger for it.
All my love,
Landon
Scrawled on the bottom in an unfamiliar hand and in a different color ink was a short note:
Found this while I was looking through a box of Landon’s things, and decided since you’re on another planet now, I could send it. He really loved you a lot. --Landon’s someone special
Dropping the note, Cora buried her head in her hands and cried the tears of catharsis. She’d always thought Landon died hating her, his heart miserable. A huge weight was lifted off her shoulders, knowing he’d found something to be happy about. She also cried because she hadn’t known, and wished they’d been speaking so she could appreciate his good fortune.
Tom came around the table and wrapped his arms around her, gently rocking her while murmuring soothing sounds and stroking her hair. When the tears at last subsided, she returned the embrace, burying her head in his chest, grateful for the wonderful man she called husband. “Feel better?” he asked softly, and she knew he meant more than just the letter.
“I do,” she said.
They tacked the card and note onto the wall next to their tiny Christmas tree, a reminder of the loves that formed them.
*
“This came for you in the mail,” Tom said, tossing a card-shaped envelope at Cora. Snatching it from the air, she stared at the object. It was made from paper--actual paper.
“From the postal service?” she asked her husband, looking up.
“Guess someone really loves you,” he said.
But who?
It had been a decade their-time since Cora and Tom departed the Malady, having left planet earth to build a new life on the recently-terraformed planet of New End. Married later in life, they didn’t have any family holding them on Earth, and the few friends they had weren’t enough to keep them there. Moving away seemed like a great way to begin their life together, and since they didn’t have any ties left on earth, the prospect of cryo-sleep for forty years didn’t bother them because nobody would miss them.
Anyone who would pen an actual note to Cora was long dead.
“Open it, love,” Tom said. “It’s Christmas. Maybe some school group found a list of names and addresses and wrote Christmas cards to lonely terraformers.”
“But I’m not lonely,” Cora said, still staring at the envelope. “I have you.”
Tom shrugged. “They wouldn’t know that.”
Flipping it over, Cora carefully tugged at the sealed envelope, making a jagged tear across the top, and pulled out a Christmas card. The front depicted a winter wonderland, the myriad trees strung with lights as children built snowmen and lobbed snowballs at each other. In the top corner Santa’s sleigh was riding off into the moon. Merry Christmas in gold was written across the top.
Nose scrunched in confusion, Cora opened the card, and a piece of paper covered in writing fell into her lap. Lifting the fallen paper, she froze. She recognized the handwriting. It belonged to her best friend, Landon, a man she hadn’t seen in nearly a lifetime.
“Who’s it from?” Tom asked, coming over to place his hand on her shoulder.
Hurriedly stuffing the paper back in the card and shoving that back in the envelope, she said, “Nobody.” Tossing the card in the wastepaper basket, she pushed away from Tom and made her way outside.
She didn’t know how the card found its way to her home. It shouldn’t have, considering Landon had been dead for a decade before she married Tom and moved away.
*
At dinner that night, the card was sitting on her plate. Cora leveled a look at her husband, who pretended he didn’t notice. “I threw that away,” she informed him, picking the card up to do so again.
“And I fished it back out,” Tom said in his infuriatingly calm voice. “You should read it.”
“Did you see who it was from?”
“Yes.”
And he still gave it back to her.
Tom and Landon had a complicated relationship. They’d never met, Landon having died years before Cora found Tom, but Tom disliked the man all the same. Landon hadn’t done anything to earn that ire--it all stemmed from Cora. Landon had been her best friend since before she could talk. They grew up together, went through puberty together, attended high school and college together. Where there was Landon, Cora would be. Where Cora was, Landon was always nearby.
It was inevitable that someone would fall in love, and everyone expected it would be both of them. To Cora’s everlasting regret, it had only been one of them. Landon had been an extension of herself since day one, and it never once occurred to her to think of him as anything else until he couldn’t hold it in any longer and professed his love for her. Shell-shocked, she’d muttered out a thank you and bolted.
Everything changed after that. It was hard not to, when a confession of love was rejected. She wanted things to remain the same, but Landon couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore, and every time she tried to talk to him he mumbled some excuse about having other things to do. If she’d known that was going to be the response, she would have lied and said she loved him, too. A person could grow to romantically love someone else, right? And it would have been worth it to keep him by her side.
But then the rational side of her brain would kick in and remind her that she didn’t love him that way, and as much as she regretted losing his friendship, she couldn’t regret telling the truth.
Life was hard and things were strained between them after that, to the point that Cora seriously considered confessing love just to get things to return to normal. But on her way to do so, tragedy struck and Landon was killed in a hit and run.
Cora was devastated. She’d crawled into bed for a year and tried to cry herself into an early grave. She missed everything about him, from the soft way he said her name to the lost look in his eyes after she rejected him. By the time she came out on the other side of her grief, she’d elevated him to sainthood in her own mind.
When she met Tom, everything fell into place. He was so kind, good, and gentle that she couldn’t help but fall in love with him. His goodness reminded her of Landon, which quickly became a sore spot in their relationship. “I can’t compete with a ghost,” Tom once told her sadly, and she hadn’t known what to do because he wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t competing because, at least in her mind, her heart had never belonged to Landon.
It took several years to come to a point where she didn’t mention Landon with every other breath and Tom no longer felt threatened by a dead man, at which time they finally wed and moved to New End. Starting over in a place with no memories had only helped their relationship. And even though Cora still missed Landon every day, she didn’t mention him much.
A physical card from him brought back a rush of memories and feelings she didn’t want to deal with. She and Tom deserved more than that. “You can’t possibly be okay with this,” she said accusingly, pointing at Tom with her fork.
Tom shrugged. “A card from a dead man is hard to ignore. I don’t have to be okay with it to be curious. Maybe it will be good for you to read.”
“It shouldn’t be here,” she said. “He was dead before we met, dead before we moved. How did it find me here?”
“Who knows?” Tom said. “Maybe he wrote it in Heaven and an angel delivered it. Maybe he wrote it before he died and his mom found it in his things and sent it to you. Maybe someone’s playing a sick practical joke. The only way to find out is to read it.” Taking the card out of her hand, Tom pulled out the paper, gently unfolded it, and handed it to her. “Read it,” he commanded softly.
Dear Cora
Ra-Ra!
Hey loser butt
I don’t know why it’s so hard to address this thing. I used to see you every day; you’d think I’d know what to call you by now.
It’s been a few months, and I’m sorry I haven’t been talking to you. I just...well, I thought we wanted the same things. We don’t, and that’s okay. It is.
I miss you. I miss the stupid jokes I crack that you don’t laugh at, and the even stupider jokes you crack that I do laugh at. I miss watching movies together and analyzing them to death and then quoting them for the next six weeks. I miss your running commentary on everyone we come across, and I miss telling you about my day.
I miss you.
I’m sorry.
It’s Christmas; can we put this behind us, at least long enough to eat Christmas dinner together? I can’t imagine the holiday without you, and… I want you to meet someone. Someone special. You’re going to hate her, but I want you to meet her anyway. I want both the girls in my life to know each other.
You’re an incredible person, Cora. We’re going to make it through this, and we’ll come out stronger for it.
All my love,
Landon
Scrawled on the bottom in an unfamiliar hand and in a different color ink was a short note:
Found this while I was looking through a box of Landon’s things, and decided since you’re on another planet now, I could send it. He really loved you a lot. --Landon’s someone special
Dropping the note, Cora buried her head in her hands and cried the tears of catharsis. She’d always thought Landon died hating her, his heart miserable. A huge weight was lifted off her shoulders, knowing he’d found something to be happy about. She also cried because she hadn’t known, and wished they’d been speaking so she could appreciate his good fortune.
Tom came around the table and wrapped his arms around her, gently rocking her while murmuring soothing sounds and stroking her hair. When the tears at last subsided, she returned the embrace, burying her head in his chest, grateful for the wonderful man she called husband. “Feel better?” he asked softly, and she knew he meant more than just the letter.
“I do,” she said.
They tacked the card and note onto the wall next to their tiny Christmas tree, a reminder of the loves that formed them.