Letters from War by Mark Schultz Read Free Book Online

country.”
    â€œWhen does he leave?”
    â€œHe leaves for Fort Benning this fall.”
    â€œThat’s where James went.”
    â€œWe know.”
    For some reason Beth felt compelled to say, “Do you know what I told James shortly after he was there? Or actually, what I wrote to him? Something I remember my husband telling me years ago. He said that the most difficult part of basic training wasn’t the physical aspect or the mental aspect, but the overall change. Dealing with being scrutinized and having your entire way of life vanish, along with dealing with fifty-something unique personalities are the hardest parts. Make sure your son finds a few good friends to rely on, because he’s going to feel completely alone at times.”
    â€œThose are good words to know—thank you,” Stan says. “Do you mind me asking…”
    â€œIt’s okay,” she says.
    â€œHave you heard anything new?”
    â€œNo. Not yet.”
    â€œWe’re believers, you know. And we’re praying for you guys. For James. And for all of you.”
    â€œThank you.”
    Her words are sincere because she knows how valuable prayers can be.
    The man shakes his head and seems to think whether he should ask anything else, then awkwardly walks away. Beth pushes her half-full grocery cart toward the checkout counter, thinking with fondness about the place she hasn’t thought about for a while:
    Fort Benning.
    It seems like a hundred years ago. And yesterday.

    There is something lost in this era of e-mail. Some might call her old-fashioned, she knows, but reading words on a computer screen doesn’t compare to the experience of opening a letter. Knowing that the handwritten words and carefully creased pages were slipped inside an envelope to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles makes their reception all the more wonderful. Tangiblemail is so much more special than the static ping of an arriving e-mail. Seeing a letter in its sometimes messy glory makes it feel like the person who sent it is there, like it’s a small version of them they mailed halfway around the world.
    On a slow burn of a summer day, the house is quiet after a visit to the local pool. Beth knows enough to stay out of the sun, but even being in the shade on a hot day like today drains the life out of her. She stays inside. She knows that Emily is asleep on the couch, the soft hum of the television in the family room providing the same function that the noise of a fan might. Yet even in the silence of her air-conditioned room, she feels restless. It’s the same soft hum that seems to have been there ever since Emily came back.
    You know it’s been there longer. You know it’s been there ever since you heard the news about James.
    It doesn’t help that friends and family members are openly sharing their doubt. It doesn’t help that strangers come up to her with words of “encouragement.” It doesn’t help that this is a life she can’t take off and put in the washing machine.
    Eventually Beth finds herself sitting in her walk-in closet that has plenty of room for two adults and seems ridiculous for one. She’s opened one of several shoeboxes, yet instead of opening the Nordstrom box to find a pair of shoes, she pulls out a carefully organized set of letters.
    To a casual onlooker, shoeboxes would make sense in a closet. Yet not even Emily knows that these boxes store letters. They date back from the time Richard first went off to training and continue through James’s last letter.
    The box she has pulled out has the first set of letters from James.
    E-mails can easily be lost. All with an errant click of a mouse or a press of a button.
    To discard a letter, you have to physically throw it away, something she’s been unable to do ever since getting that first letter from Richard back in 1984, the same year he proposed.
    She sees her son’s meticulous handwriting.