I took a lonely 78-year-old Vietnam veteran to my senior prom because he’d never attended his own — when grandma saw my date, she went pale.
I turned to Gran.
“What does that mean?”
She touched the letters.
“Rose wrote every week.”
“What does that mean?”
Walter frowned.
“No.”
“She did.”
“She stopped writing to me.”
“No, Walter.”
Gran pushed the basket toward him.
“She never stopped.”
He stared at the envelopes.
“She stopped writing to me.”
“Then why do you have them?”
Gran’s eyes filled.
“Because they never reached you.”
Walter stood so quickly his cane slipped.
I caught it.
“I waited for her,” he said. “I checked every chance I got.”
“Then why do you have them?”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
Gran flinched.
“I do. That’s why I kept them all these years.”
Walter looked at the basket, then at Gran.
“How long?”
“More than 60 years.”
“You don’t know.”
He held out his hand for his cane.
“I need to leave. Please. I need to just… get out.”
“Walter, wait.”
He looked at my dress.
“You have a prom to get to.”
“It’s okay, Walter. We can stay.”
“Walter, wait.”
“No, not tonight.”
“Gran hasn’t explained.”
He swallowed.
“If I hear the rest now, I won’t make it through that door.”
I handed him his cane.
“Then we go.”
“Gran hasn’t explained.”
Before we left, I looked back at Gran.
She was still standing beside the basket.
And I knew we weren’t done with it.
***
Ben took one look at us when we got back into the car and kept his questions to himself.
I turned toward Walter.
“We don’t have to go.”
Before we left, I looked back at Gran.
“You invited me.”
“That was before Gran handed you 60 years of letters.”
Walter looked at me.
“Before I found out Rose didn’t forget me?”
I nodded
