“I’ve debated showing you this,” she admitted, nervous anticipation streaking through her veins as she held the envelope out to Sutton, worn from the last couple of years of repeated handling from Charlotte herself. “No one else has ever seen the contents.”
Sutton’s eyebrows lifted in clear interest as she glanced down at the envelope. “Is it a state secret?” she teased.
“Something more important than that,” Charlotte answered seriously. “Perhaps not to, well, the government,” she clarified, flashing a grin, “but it is to me.”
She swallowed hard as Sutton reached out to take the envelope from her, her stomach swooping low as she murmured, “It’s a letter from my grandmother. That she left for me, before she died.”
One of several, but this one… this was the one she read more than any other.
This was the one that had changed her life.
Sutton’s eyes widened, and she whipped her head up from where she’d been looking at the envelope to stare at Charlotte.
“I think, after you read it, you’ll be able to understand more clearly why I’m so certain of my decision to pursue you. Us.”
As soon as she said the words, Sutton was shaking her head, trying to give the envelope back. “You don’t have to give me this. You don’t owe me—or anyone—the right to see something so personal. This isyours.”
It was the tone of Sutton’s voice even more than the words themselves that settled warmly in Charlotte’s chest. They clearly told her that Sutton understood how personal this was and how deeply she treasured her grandmother’s words.
“I know I don’t have to do it, but I want you to read it. Please.”
Sutton bowed her head as she started to read, and Charlotte had to swallow against her rampant nerves.
Even without having the pages in front of her, she knew what they said. She’d read that letter so many times after her grandmother’s death.
Charlotte—
I think I will do us both a favor and skip over any qualifiers such as, “If you’re reading this, I’m gone,” as I think we both know—I’m gone.
I’m not quite certain when or how it will happen. I can only tell you that, as I write this letter, it’s the eve of my ninety-seventh birthday, and there are days that I certainly feel that age in my bones. Not every day, mind you, but… some days. The terrible reality is that we are all put on this earth to leave it, and no matter how indomitable I am, my time will come as well. Sooner rather than later, at this point.
There is nothing I can say to you to ease my passing, so I won’t even attempt to do so.
What I will tell you here are the things I very much need for you to carry forward in this world after I am no longer in it.
First and foremost, I love you, Charlotte.
Perhaps I have not said it enough in my life. In fact, I can guarantee this is a fact. As I get older, wiser, and reflect more on my life, I can accept that I should have told the people I love how much I do. Because I truly do. For as much as I married your grandfather for purposes that served my career, I loved him. For as busy and, admittedly, not incredibly physically present as I was throughout your father’s life, I love him. For as much as I hoped for different ambitions for William and Caleb, I love them.
But there has never been and never will be anyone on this earth that I love as dearly and as fiercely as I love you.
It’s not just because of how much your life has mirrored mine, of how much I see myself in you. It’s because, starting right in your youth, I saw you for everything you are. You have always been determined and courageous and stubborn and willful and brilliant.
There was something about you, even in your childhood, that struck me so deeply. Your existence, more than anyone else’s, changed me as a person.
I’ve always had my goals, but when you came onto this planet, those goals shifted into something more than ambition. They became personal. I wanted to make a positive mark on this world, but more than that, I wanted the world to be a better place for you.
This is the part where I admit that I am far from a perfect person. Something I’ve always known, as everyone is fallible, but as I reflect on the meaning of life while nearing the inevitable end of mine, it’s my personal failures that strike me the most hauntingly.
Professionally, I would have done nothing different. I have accomplished everything in that aspect that I could have ever dreamed of and more. I will leave this world without a single regret on how history will remember me.
The aspect of my life that I fear I’ve failed the most in is an ever-growing concern that I’ve failed you.
Make no mistake, my girl; I am intently and ardently proud of the person you are, all you have accomplished, as well as the future we can both see more clearly every day.
But, as we are both growing older, I’m starting to see beyond those aspects of life which we both hold dear.
I’m not going to abandon my propensity for bluntness in death, so I’ll simply tell you: You are nearing forty as I write this, and you are alone. Not only alone, but lonely.