Letters From a Spirit

The pain was sharp, like a blow to the back of the head. Completely unexpected, leaving her on the ground in a heap of clothes and tears.

"The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your fiance Private first class Daniel Matthews was killed in action on six February in France."

The ground was cold beneath her skin and it somehow matched the frozen feeling within her chest. It wasn't true, oh, it couldn't be true! He wasn't really gone, the telegram had been delivered to the wrong address.

Yes, she thought, that had to be it! Oh, but the name wasn't his, surely she had read it wrong! Surely God couldn't be that cruel...

Sitting up, Cathy scrambled for the letter, her finger nails clawing at the tile, scratching to break the invisible seal between the letter and the floor.

"Cathy, what is it?" Her mother asked quietly as she came up the stairs. Her gaze stopped on the envelope and paper that Cathy scratched viciously at. "Oh, Chicken." she said as she stepped fully into her daughter's room and sat down beside her on the floor.

"It isn't true." Cathy said as she re-read the letter, her eyes moving in rapid secession over the words; left, right, left, right. It wasn't true, it couldn't be.

"Chicken," Cathy's mother said as she pulled the slowly crumpling paper from between her daughter's shaking hands, "it's true."

Cathy laid her head in her mother's lap and let the sobs overcome her, bleed out of her like the life had bled out of Daniel, and she cried.