Jean says to take things slowly, that the only way the future happens is to stay in today, but I know she likes Amanda too, that she’s happy for me, for us. It’s really funny because I’d been afraid to say anything to her, because of the rule about couples, but apparently David and Jean have been a couple for nearly three years! Everyone knew, except me. I hadn’t thought about it for a nano-second even though they were walking on the beach together the night Amanda swam out to pull me back in. It’s just like Laurie used to say, that I notice the little things and I don’t see the big ones—I can hear her voice calling me a dumbass, but when I talked to Amanda about it, she only smiled and said that people are different and that the world would be boring if we all saw things the same way.
Winnie came back yesterday, I forgot to tell you that. She has a photo in a frame by her bed now of her and Melissa and Darryl. And it’s nice to have her back, sharing a room again, different than before. I wasn’t expecting her to give me a present so I’m really surprised when she takes a book from her bag for me and when I unwrap it I see it’s another Raymond Carver one, only it’s poetry this time. The book is called All of Us and my favourite poem is called “Fear.” I like it because it’s a list and because it reminds me that everyone gets afraid, even Raymond Carver.
I’m coming towards the end of this letter, Mum, and I want to say something important. I want to tell you that even though I only found out what happened when I got your letters, I already knew, some part of me did. I can’t explain it properly, make it make sense the way I want it to, but it’s like reading the letters wasn’t finding out something new, more like uncovering something already there, something maybe I’d hidden away. As if I could have known it and not known it at the very same time.
Does that make any sense at all?
Jean would ask if it makes sense to me.
The other thing I want you to know, Mum, is that I forgive you. Right now, I forgive you. At 11:12 p.m. on 27th July 1999, I forgive you. Maybe I won’t tomorrow, maybe at 11:13 p.m. I’ll feel like I felt yesterday afternoon when I got so mad in Jean’s office that I wanted to kick my Doc through her glass table top, to rip the stupid swing chair from its frame, but right now isn’t yesterday afternoon, and right now I forgive you.
I don’t want you to think I’m forgetting about you, Mum, just because I’m not writing to you. I don’t know if I can explain this right, but it feels like, before, I needed to write to you, to think about you, to feel you were there, but now I don’t—not anymore. Does that make sense?
It makes sense to me.
And I keep thinking of the first time I saw Columbia, Mum, do you remember how I told you that I stood at the subway station and I watched all the students walking through the gate and I couldn’t do anything, only stand there? In a few months, I’m going to be one of those students and I’ll be walking through that gate, on my own, and up the steps into the library on my own, but I won’t be fully on my own, you’ll be with me too. You’ll be there, all around me, in the redbrick paving under my Docs, in the light that hits the leaves of the trees, in the line of books on the library bookshelves, in the feel of the pen in my hand. You’ll be in all those places, but when I choose my seat, I’ll choose the one I want to sit in, and maybe it’ll be where you sat or maybe it won’t, but it doesn’t matter because I’m choosing it for me. And even though you’re in all those places, or maybe because you are, I won’t have to look for you all the time, not anymore. And I don’t understand how, but somehow in all of this, through all of this, it feels like I found you.
I read those last lines back and they reminded me of your letter—the ending of your letter. I’ve read that ending over and over, the part where you said you’d always be with me, even when I couldn’t feel you. When I read that first I was so angry, Mum, that day on the beach, it sounded like such bullshit and I almost ripped it into tiny pieces, but I’m glad I shoved it in the backpack with the rest of the letters so I can read it again, and sometimes, now, when I read it, I think it’s true.
I think you were always there, even when I couldn’t feel you, even when I couldn’t feel anything at all.
I’m crying again, Mum, I’m crying because I don’t want this letter to end, because I want to keep writing and writing and writing. I’m crying because I don’t know how many letters I have to write to say goodbye to you, I wish I knew. More than anything, I wish I knew.
I don’t want to sign off leaving you to think I’m really sad, Mum, because I’m happy too and excited because tomorrow the new kids are coming. And it’s scary too to have new kids, and I miss the old ones, I miss Maleika and Luis, I even miss Marco and I know that there’s no way any of them will take Robin’s place, because I miss her like crazy, but maybe that’s okay, maybe they’ll all have their own places.
And tomorrow night, it might be hard not to write to you about the new kids and if I want to, I might, I’m not going to say I definitely won’t. Jean says I don’t have to say definitely anything anymore.
But just in case I don’t, in case this is the last letter, I want you to know that even when I don’t write to you on paper, I’ll be writing to you in my head. And that every hour of every day, every minute, every second, I’ll be writing to you in my heart.
Love from your daughter,
Rhea x
Acknowledgements
My name is on the cover of this novel, but there are many people who supported and helped me along the way to publication.
Specifically, I’d like to extend my thanks to: Lisa Bezinover, Patrick Burhenne, Maura Cassidy, Paul Cassidy, Harold Dean James, Judy D’Mello, Christine Doran, Stan Erraught, Patricia Farnham, Bernie Furlong, Penny Goldenberg, Gerald Jonas, Penelope Karageorge, Rafiq Kathwari, Melissa Leong, Christine McKinney, Aisling O’Sullivan, Alexis Pace, Jennifer Paul, Rasha Refaie, Claire Rourke, Mindy Schneider, Jane Stark, and Jim Urbom.
Special thanks to three very fine writers who helped me enormously: Dominic Bennett, Eileen Kavanagh, and Annie Quintano. Thank you all for your insights, observations, and suggestions on an early draft and for providing these within such a short space of time.
Huge thank you to my wonderful agent Joy Tutela and to all at Flux, especially Brian Farrey-Latz and my eagle-eyed editor Sandy Sullivan.
And finally, thank you to Danielle Mazzeo—for proofreading, for brainstorming titles, for believing in me and in this book, and for always waiting to share dinner with me, no matter how late I came home from the library.
About the Author
Yvonne Cassidy (New York, NY) is an Irish author who has written three novels, including How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? When she’s not writing, Yvonne works at Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen and uses her writing skills for fundraising and teaching creative writing.
How Many Letters Are In Goodbye? Page 43
