In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

133 Ahead of Time Her letter, mailed from Saranac, is dated 1926. My mother’s writing to my aunt. It’s two years since she told her father, “Dad, I’m marrying Sam and not the man you had in mind.” That’s decades more than half a century ago. My mother and my aunt are dead. I’m well past sixty when I share my mother’s letter with my wife. It stills us like a resurrection. Later I read it to my son and to his wife. They tell me how alive it seems as if a woman neither ever knew is speaking in this very room to each of us. The letter’s full of questions I can answer, but the time for answering is over. I realize my life’s already longer than my mother’s was by almost thirty years. The letter in my hand is older than the two of us. The more I read, the less there is to read until I reach the bottom of the page. 134 The last sentence ends with a hyphen. There’s no page two. ...

Share