Dear Grace,
It's been six years since I last spoke to your parents, six years since for all intents and purposes your parents died, no one talks to me about them, and I don't ask, as it is, there are only four people in my life who are still in their lives.
There's Farkle, there's my Uncle Josh, and then there's my parents.
One of the most important things that I've learned from what happened between Maya and I is that parents don't care about fights. They don't get in the middle of them, but they also don't care about them, they don't pick sides, they don't cut their losses, they stand firmly in the middle.
Parents are Switzerland.
Most of what I've been able to piece together for glimpses of your parents life together come from those four places.
A framed photo of your mom on her wedding day with my parents hanging on the wall in the apartment kitchen told me that they got married.
Your mom looked stunning that day, Grace. Her dress was everything that she was, simple yet elegant, her face was almost completely clear of makeup, and her blonde hair tumbled over her right shoulder. Her cheeks were filled with a rosy blush and her smile reached everywhere, including me.
An envelope in my parent's mail with a returning address in Lucas' messy scrawl told me that they had moved from Chicago to Austin, and a creepy online search that I admit wasn't one of my finest hours, revealed a stunning home on a large piece of land.
It's a 1.6 million dollar house that sits on about five acres of land, and everything about it, though I've only seen the outside in photographs, screams home.
I always thought of Maya in a city, she'd only ever lived in them, from New York to Chicago, somewhere busy, and eclectic, somewhere where something was always happening, where everyone had a story and everybody was getting wasted so it didn't hurt when they told it. I always imagined Maya in the places where the broken-hearted were attracted to.
New York, Chicago, New Orleans, places of danger and excitement.
Something clicked when I saw the home though, something about the life that Maya wanted with her family. She wanted somewhere peaceful, somewhere calm, somewhere her children could feel like everything was safe, everything was better, somewhere where her children could run and play and never worry.
She wanted a house, and that was what Lucas had built her from what had once been a broken home.
Then there was the fact that your mom finally forgave her dad, I was around for the beginning of that, and all the effects of that, but that's a story I'll let your parents, Uncle Josh and Aunt Sara tell you, because that's another story of another great love, Grace, one of mistakes and adversary, and finding love in the most unexpected of places. You'll like that story Grace, it's might be my favorite love story, it's a toss up between theirs and my parents' story.
After I learned about the wedding, I learned about the move, from there I learned about the house, and six months ago when I started writing these letters, I found a postcard in Farkle's living room and I learned about you, Grace.
It's seems fitting that today of all days is when I got around to this last letter.
Over the past five years your parents have become a source of interest in the eyes of the public. I wouldn't say famous in that your parents live quiet lives, you don't see them being followed around by photographers, and social media isn't flooded with rumors and fans, but they are recognizable.
Maya Hart has become legendary in the art world, I shouldn't have expected any differently, but I wasn't around when her art career truly started, what I do know is that her pieces hang in the homes of a lot of powerful people, I know that none of her pieces have gone for less than 20,000 in years, and I know that there are rumors circulating that she's going to be the youngest person to ever have one of her pieces hang in the National Art Gallery.
I also know that about five years ago I graduated from NYU and your mom had promised me she'd stay in New York after graduation. I know how angry I was that she was leaving early to go back to Chicago and I had never even given her the chance to explain why. I know now that she left because a small art museum tucked in the heart of Chicago had agreed to display her painting in an exhibit about people. I also know that there is an 8x12 canvas wrapped in brown paper that's sitting in my closet unopened.
Two months after Maya left New York, left me, the canvas came in the mail, I haven't had the heart to look at it, but I know what it's called, it's written in her neat handwriting on the top left corner, and I know.
I know that the very first painting that Maya's ever professionally done, the painting that started her entire career, the very first thing she'd ever displayed to the world is a painting about me.
A painting titled, "The Color Purple."
I used to insist that I was good at art, back in middle school, I used to draw Lucas, or cats, but one thing held true, from some reason beyond even me, every time I painted, I only ever used the color purple.
One day I'd like to think I'll be brave enough to open it, to see the painting, but for now, it's tucked away inside my closet.
Along with the painting is a newspaper article and photograph that I store with it. Just as your mother has received public interest so has your father.
The picture is simple - it's your dad holding a medal and shaking hands with the President. That medal, however, isn't so simple, in fact that medal is the highest honor anyone in the service can receive. The Medal of Honor. An award given for a deed of personal bravery or self-sacrifice performed above and beyond the call of duty while a member of the armed forces in actual combat with an enemy nation.
I shouldn't have been surprised by that either, really. Your father has a lot of fantastic qualities, Graceland, but the most important and the most constant quality he has is his protectiveness. He cares for everyone, and he loves fiercely, and he'd sacrifice his own life for a stranger on the street.
It was who he had always been, and it had only been enhanced by joining the Navy.
I'll probably never know why your dad received the medal, every media outlet reports it as something done during a black ops mission, but I know your mom knows. I know because she's standing the background of that photo in a simple black dress and she looks so immensely proud of your father, but so immensely sad.
I also know one other thing, I know that your father is the only person to be alive to receive the medal in fifteen years, and that whatever he did, he did before he and Maya left, I know this because next to the picture of Lucas is a picture of a small boy, no older than nine shaking the President's hand while receiving a medal for his father in absentia.
Whatever Lucas had done, he had done with James' father whose name I learned from the article was junior grade Lieutenant Nicholas Spencer, and he had died for it.
Now I have one more thing to add to the small shrine to your parents I've built - a shoebox if you will - and it comes in the cover photo and feature article of the New York Time Magazine that focuses on the life of your parents.
They've never done anything like that before, as I told you before, both seem intent on quiet lives, and it doesn't seem like either have any intention of doing it again, but when the Times asks, people have a tendency to answer positively.
The article doesn't tell me anything I don't already know, at least not anything big, but it does confirm one of the questions I had when I wrote you that first letter.
Turns out, they do call you Grace after all.
So there it is, and here we are, and as it turns out, we're all okay. Damaged, torn apart, bruised, yes to all of the above. But we're all okay.
None of us came out the way we used to be, but we all found our own way, even me. It took a lot of time, and it took a lot of pain, but I put the pieces of my life together. I found my place in the world, I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, and I figured out the kind of person that I wanted to be.
There was something I told you in the second letter. I told you that it was fact, the sky is blue, the grass is green, Maya is my best friend, and Lucas is going to be a veterinarian, those were all fact.
I was wrong.
So let me tell you a couple of facts that can't be disproven.
The sky is blue, the grass is green, Maya is happy, and I am a veterinarian.
Happy birthday, Grace.
All my love,
Aunt Riley
And with that comes the end of Dear Grace. I have so many things I want to say to all of you beautiful humans but I just want to say this first…. Thank you. When I first posted this story, I didn't expect much out of it, and I certainly didn't expect the amount of love and appreciation I've received from all of you. I'm beyond floored, and beyond grateful for all of you for reading.
Dear Grace was just an idea I had in my head that stemmed from two things, Riley and Maya constantly saying they would step back for one another, and Riley and Maya constantly saying that it was them forever. It made me wonder what would happen if it wasn't Riley and Maya forever, what would be the cause of the breakdown of their relationship, and from that I was led to, what if neither of them stepped back? The answers to both of those questions came to life for me in the form of Dear Grace.
With that said I'd like to say thank you one more time, you guys have been incredible to me, and I couldn't ever have expected that. So that just leaves the two questions I need answering. Would you like to see a prequel to Dear Grace (Lucas and Maya's version of the story) and would you like me to create a tumblr to interact with you guys as I won't be doing author's notes in any chapter besides the very last one of the story?
By the way Riley's decision to ultimately become a veterinarian had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Lucas wanted to be one, I'm just a sucker for parallelism and for things coming full circle.
