My Hindout

General Papa,  having dined at home alone, told his driver to leave the keys beside his table, he might go out, and he sat down to write as always. He ended every year in this manner, writing and day dreaming. He reviewed the events of his life since he lost his fiance and unborn child in a blazing fire 6 years ago. He had immersed his thoughts and deeds in his work now, not thinking a lot made it easy to live the days and sleep the nights. But this Christmas was special. Friends and family had him convinced he was moving on… So he sat down, opened a drawer, took out of it a young woman’s photograph, gazed at it a few moments, and kissed it. Then, having laid it beside his cup of coffee, he began: “MY DEAR IRENE: You must by this time have received the little surprise I sent you, addressed to the maid of course. I am writing to you this evening in order to tell you——” The pen here ceased to move. General Papa rose up and began walking up and down the room. For the last ...

I had been reading my pile of saved letters nonstop. The envelopes were of various sizes and colors, but all were worn, softened, and wrinkled. I carried them with me from my bedroom drawer, laid them on my kitchen table. He had just called and stirred up all sorts of emotion. He was hungover, driving back to the camp after an alleged weekend of vigorous training. And he was calling me, what, to kill time on his way back? I had sent him an email a few days earlier, asking how his last days of training were going, odds and ends, just loose chatter. And so he told me he’d gotten my email and was sorry that he hadn’t gotten a chance to write back, that he’d been really busy. But that he’d been thinking about me…wonderful He could always do that so well. Turn a miserable conversation into unveiled flirtation. We never really had what might be considered a normal conversation. In the twelve months that Luke and I were “together” he was deployed in Somalia for six of them, i...

IN OUR HEARTS… Elizabeth, my Grandma at ninety-five, knew she was near the end. She did not repine, for she had had a long, hard life and she was tired. The young priest who brought her communion had administered the last rites—holy oils on her eyelids (Lord, forgive her the sins of seeing!); holy oils on her lips (Lord, forgive her the sins of speaking!), on her ears, on her knotted hands, on her weary feet. Now she was ready, though she knew the approach of the dread presence would mean greater suffering. So she folded quiet hands beneath her heart. And she seemed given over to pleasant reverie. Neighbors came in to see her, and she roused herself and received them graciously, with a personal touch for each.—“And has your Juliet gone to High school yet, Ms. Mary? Nothing would do her best .she must be going, I suppose”. Or to Mrs. Mwanza: “Your hubby is at it again, I see by the look of you. Poor man! There’s no holding him? Eh, woman dear! Thirst is the end of drinking and sor...