Chapter 12
October 2, 1949
Dear Santana,
how are you? Are you thinking about me? I hope this postcard will cross the ocean to reach you. What will remain of our memories? Are we going to live our life like this forever? I can't stay away from you.
Your Brittany
Why did he do this? Why did he keep away from her all this happiness?
October 29, 1949
Why don't you answer my letters? Santana, Santana! Please, write to me. I think I'm going crazy.
Your Brittany
December 19, 1949
I hate this place, I hate everything. Why don't you answer my letters? Write to me, tell me that you're still thinking of me. I need it. Every day here is like a year.
February 1, 1950
I feel like in a cage. What is this place? This is not my destiny. Or maybe it is since my father wanted it. My dear Santana, why am I here, with a man I don't love and who was your lover. I know is crazy but sometimes I think he is the last thing that still connects me to you, do you believe it? My dear Santana, I want to be with you. I want to feel you near me, I want to sleep feeling your breath against my neck. I don't forget your skin. Why life was so cruel? Meeting you was the real sentence since now I know I can't live without thinking of you. My God, Santana, I'm so unhappy.
Noah laughs and looks at me with pity. He is jealous of my feelings for you even if he doesn't want to say anything to me. But he made it clear one night in the ship. I thought about ending my life while we were sailing. Then I found hope in my heart. Hope that one day I will see you again. Hope that I will be able to write to you. Hope that I will have the strength to think about you. Sometimes such a small hope is enough to tighten our grip on life. It was enough for me.
I don't know why you don't answer. How I love you, Santana. God, how I stlli love you. I want you here with me. I will keep writing to you even if you don't write me back.
Please, tell me that your letter was not true, tell me that you didn't write it.
For the rest of my life, until the day we meet again, I will think about you. Because I know that one day we will be together again. But where are you now? Please, tell me.
Your Brittany
Santana read the letters sat on a bench in a garden. Her mind was spinning wildly. While she was reading, Santana saw all her life in front of her eyes and she realized that her soul and her body had lived two different times. Who was the real Santana? The one who was listening the voices coming from those letters or the rich and famous woman who found them?
When she arrived at home, she managed to obtain the address of Emily and Will and wrote her first letter to Brittany.
October 20, 1969
Dear Brittany,
where were you all these years? Such a long time. Brittany, Brittany, Brittany. How many times I thought about you. How many times I wrote your name. I never forgot you. In a few days you will read these words and I will be with you again. Today is the beginning of a new life for me and I want to say your name over and over again. How can I write my happiness? You can't even imagine what happened in these days and now I'm here breaking the silence between us. Twenty years. At the beginning I was counting the days, the weeks, the months... How are you, Brittany? My hand is shaking. You have been inside me all these years, you were my only company. How many things I would like to tell you, I don't know where to begin. And you? How was your life? I met Emily, your daughter. She is beautiful as you were and as I'm sure you still are. Do you remember my birthday party? Do you remember that night. I remember everything. I fight against the time for those memories every day. It seems like yesterday to me. Seeing your daughter was like seeing your ghost in front of me. I have found your letters today. Just today. My father kept everything away from me and now he is dead. I read your words now that I have found your daughter. And I cried on those words that remained stuck for such a long time.
Write to me, please, tell me that you didn't forget me. Tell me that you didn't forget our dreams, our promises. Happiness confuses me. Brittany, Brittany, my sweet Brittany.
Your Santana
November 26, 1969
My sweet sweet Santana,
I can't explain the joy I felt when Emily told me about you. I couldn't believe it. You? Really you? I didn't know if I wanted to cry or to laugh. She kept asking who you were and why you know me and Noah and I just wanted to ask her questions about you. She told me about your caress.
How are you, my Santana, my soul? Emily told me about your work and I'm so happy for you. I have so many things to say to you. I kept sending you letters for awhile and then I stopped because you didn't write me back. I felt so lonely writing those words.
I have another daughter and her name is Santana. You can't even imagine how much I had to fight for that name. She is beautiful like her sister. I would like to tell you everything but how is it even possible? Those days with you had kept me company all my life. Dear Santana, how happy I am to write to you, my heart is full of love in this moment. Time doesn't matter, it's an illusion.
How can I tell twenty years in a letter? So many things come to my mind. Do you remember our nights? I remember your hands, our youth, our love. Every moment of my life was dedicated to you. Santana, my love, I'm here, lost in this world thinking about you.
Your Brittany
December 15, 1969
My dear Brittany,
you are right: time is an illusion. Past can't come back but I froze it in me and it can be my present every day. I try to imagine your life and I know that you want to know about mine. Maybe you want to know if there has been love in my life. I have to be true: nobody took your place. I had someone by my side for a few years but he never really belonged to me as I always belonged to you. I didn't have child, I didn't want to. It was not right.
I have never sent you a letter. I knew about your wedding while I was already abroad and I understood in that moment what our parents had decided for our future. I received a letter from you in which you wrote that you didn't want to see me again. I went mad. I began to scream and throw everything around. I'm smiling now understanding what happened but in those days the pain was unbearable. I knew that you didn't write those words but still I didn't understand. Why our parents acted like this? There was nothing dirty or obscene in our love.
Everything with you was different. With you I understood the beauty of the world.
Will we ever see each other again? Tell me about you.
A kiss
Your Santana
January 24, 1970
My love,
Noah doesn't know that we are writing to each other. Your words are only mine. I read your letters several times. It's so wonderful to have you back in my life. I don't even want my daughters to know about our letters. It's a secret.
I want you to know me again, I want to tell you everything. I learned to love Noah during these years. It's not easy to explain. Emily was conceived in the ship. One night he was drunk and he took me against my will. Emily was born from that violence. Where is the good and where is the evil? I didn't have the strength to rebel. I tried to find the best in what life was giving me: this is just another way to survive. Dear Santana, with me Noah learned how to love himself. We built a life together. I can't hate him. Have I been happy or unhappy? I don't even know if these questions make sense. Life is complex and we always want simple answers. Even our parents wanted something good for us. There were moments in which I have been happy. My life with my daughters was the most real happiness after you. Living here wasn't easy and it's not easy even today. Noah is tired, he is really sick and I don't know if my words will change your opinion on him.
My daughters brought joy in my life, they're my love. But there's a truth I can't erase, my dear Santana: I can't forget you. My soul is alive only when I say your name, even after all these years.
Goodnight my sweet love
Your Brittany
March 20, 1970
Dear Brittany,
I don't know if your words hurt me or not. I don't know. I'm alone now and I'm scared. I even thought about not writing to you anymore. I don't want the past to separate us again. After the initial enthusiasm, I'm not really sure if I want to meet you again. What if we have only illusions? The hope to be with you again kept me alive during these years and now I'm scared. I'm scared of losing you again. I'm afraid that reality will crash our dreams again. I want to cry and to laugh, I want to hug you and I want to vanish from the world.
Brittany, Brittany, Brittany. I want to love you for the rest of my life but I think you will never be mine.
Your Santana
March 21, 1970
My dear Brittany,
forget my words. There are too many thoughts in my head and I'm confused. I didn't even ask you about Noah. Is he really so sick? I'm sorry, I can't understand anything. I'm here, alone, and I've never been so alone in my life. I think I will be alone for the rest of my life. That's why the idea of seeing you fights against the idea of never seeing you again. I know that you will never leave your family. I understand. I'm not even able to ask you that. I thought a lot about our future in the past months. I don't know, I want everything and life denies me everything. I want to love you and instead I'm here alone, so far away from you. I send you a kiss.
Forever yours
Santana
June 3, 1970
My dear Santana,
since we found each other again, even the words of the poets sound different to my ears.
Noah is really sick now. I spent the last two months in the hospital with him. He is so pale and thin. Emily and Santana are always here with me, near their father. They're scared. They are giving him all the love he wanted from me. I understood this in these days. He still looks at me with eyes full of desire.
I'm not writing this to make you suffer but because this is my life now and I don't want to hide anything. I would like to be there with you but this is the life I live here, with my family. I'm still his wife and I will be his wife until the end. I've never loved Noah as I love you but I care for him and I learned forgiveness.
I'm going to sleep now. I'm really tired. The memories, my words to you, the idea of speaking with you leave me without energies. My voice is inside you and I would like to hear our voices together again. I always loved you, dear Santana, and our love has not yet seen the end.
Goodnight
Your Brittany
June 29, 1970
My dear Brittany,
I cried reading your letter and now I think that I will never save myself from my loneliness. I don't know what to write, I just know what I wanted my life to be. Time is gone forever. Your life is there, far away from me. And what if I ask you to be here with me now? Will you think that I'm an egoist? That I'm afraid of my solitude? I'm not. I spent so many years waiting for my love to be true love. Waiting for someone who could welcome me as I am. I want my love to find a safe harbour, I'm tired to lie in wait.
I don't want to write anymore. I don't want to hear about you anymore. I shouldn't have meet Emily. Fate keeps playing with us and we are only able to suffer in silence. We will never be together. That's the only truth. There's no music for us, Brittany, there's no music in our days. Don't write me back. It's better in this way, we will suffer less.
Forever yours
Santana
August 20, 1970
My dear Santana,
do you reproach me for my life? But this is my life. Do you suffer for my words? But these truths will not diminish my love for you. Are you jealous? And what should I say? Should I have lied to you? Do you think it's possible to erase in a moment twenty years? I kept your name inside me all these years. I defended our love from the brutality of life. Don't you remember our nights?
Please, don't get offended. Life always offends us, even when it gives us joy. Between all the pain and the happiness of my life, I have never forgot you. And if the ocean didn't received me in its darkness, I will repeat it to you, it was just for the feeble hope to meet you again.
What are twenty years? Nothing. Just days. It doesn't matter. I'm there with you with my words. But if you really want, I will never write to you again.
With love
Your Brittany
Septemeber 1, 1970
I wanted to write and then no. I wanted to write harsh words and then I wanted to embrace you with tenderness. I wanted to rip all your letters and then I closed all of them in a box to control my madness. What I feel for you is destroying me.
I won't write anymore.
I leave you with a present, a memory of our days. I've found them after a long time in a drawer. I remember leaving them there in the hope of looking again at them with you one day. Now I know it's impossible. They're so beautiful and I want you to have them. Goodbye Brittany, you will be forever with me, every day of my life. Be happy.
Forever yours
Santana
When Brittany opened the letter she saw four pictures in black and white. In the first she saw herself, young, leaning on a rock, with her arms in the air, ready to jump like a dancer with a smile on her face. She remembered that day. In the second one she was sitting on the beach, with her head on her knees, lost in her thoughts. In the third and fourth she was with Santana. They were again near the sea, embracing each other.
Brittany watched the pictures for a long time in silence. She read again the letter.
Emily arrived suddenly.
«Mom, come! Dad needs you!»
«I'm coming.» Brittany replied.
She closed the envelope and put it in her bag. She ran an hand across her face thinking about Santana's words between rage and pain while tears were bursting inside her. She decided to never write back.
Note.
Until now, I didn't write any personal comment at the end of the chapters because I didn't want to break the mood of the story. But, since the story is near the end, I needed to say thank you. I don't know how many people read this story but I was not interested in big numbers when I started to write. I thought that one "favorite" or one "alert" would be enough: I would write for that person. That's why I want to thank in particular SomeAreLakes, R Cole, everythingurnot and eveOFeden who also took the time to write their reviews. I really, really appreciate your words.
In my mind, the story I wrote was more articulated than what you read but there were two obstacles: English is not my first language and time is always not enough. So, as SomeAreLakes noticed, I tried to keep it really simple and essential, letting the reader to fill the holes with imagination.
Well, that's all :)
