September 13th, 1891
"Andrew, I'm back."
Mrs. Lemay pushed open the front door with her foot to get into their apartment as she fumbled with holding the door keys, a handful of mail, and a large box of groceries. She shut the door and managed to get the keys onto the hook by the door without dropping any of her burdens before making her way to the kitchen table to drop off her groceries. She'd left Andrew a little over an hour ago to run her afternoon errands with a load of laundry to be folded and a promise to be back before long. He normally responded to her when she returned, though, and she made her way into the parlor to check on him.
There she found him, surrounded by piles of odd towels and shirts and fast asleep over an open copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Oh, sweet tired boy. She smiled and took the book from his hands before pulling the blanket up over him. These things would need to be put away before Clara got home, and she began quietly making stacks to return to rooms. The peace of the afternoon brought a sense of contentedness to the house as she went about her chores of tidying up after the two children, quietly humming one of Andrew's catchy songs that were stuck in her head to occupy herself.
Finally, she was able to sit down at the writing desk to go through the afternoon's mail. Business correspondence and paperwork for Mark, mostly. She set it aside for him to attend to later that evening. Correspondence for herself about orphanage work and the church charity events. The Lady's Home Journal, she would read that tonight after supper. And… what was this?
A weather-worn and rather stuffed envelope found its way into their mailbox, addressed to one Andrew Morris.
She rushed to the couch and gently shook him awake. "Andrew, Andrew, wake up. Your family wrote!"
Andrew stirred and rubbed his eyes, blinking against the afternoon light. He thought he heard something about family, but sleep clouded his understanding. "Wha? What's the matter?" He asked through a yawn.
Mrs. Lemay pressed the letter into his hands with a smile. "Look, Andrew. Your family wrote to you!"
His smile widened now, fully awake, and he tore into the envelope to pull out the pages of paper. He glanced over them all and handed one back to Mrs. Lemay. "This one is for you! My mother must have wanted to say hi!" He said, before turning back to his letter. She took it and began to read over the small cramped cursive.
Hello Elizabeth, August 10th, 1891
I hope this letter finds you and your family well! I cannot begin to express my appreciation for your offer to watch over Andrew while we had to continue West. We miss him dearly, but trust he's doing well in your care and enjoying the time with your daughter.
Unfortunately, the mailing address for this letter will be obsolete by the time you receive it, so you cannot write back to us, but we wanted to check in nonetheless. We have reached La Junta and send this envelope from the post office there. It will most likely follow the rail line back the way we came to you on a mail car while we move onto Santa Fe. The conditions are rather cramped on the trains, but when we're working on the tracks, we keep our belongings and sleep in tents pitched beside the tracks. Many of the workers are immigrants like ourselves and you can hear a dozen different languages at any time. The work is hard, but the pay is good and we save as much as we can so that when we finish the tracks, we will be able to able to start our own farm and build our home. When we reach the next major city with a post office, we'll send another letter, and as soon as we are settled, we will send word for Andrew to come to us. We do not know how long this will be, but we pray it will be enough time for him to regain his strength and health.
Thank you again for everything you've done for us.
Sincerely Yours,
Eleanor Morris.
Mrs. Lemay looked up from the letter and smiled at Andrew, who was still reading through the pages of the letters he'd received with a wild grin. It looked from the different handwriting styles that each of his family members wrote something to him individually and he was careful to keep them in order by carefully flipping each finished page forward to rest on his chest as he read the next. She patted his leg and stood up from her place on the couch to put her letter back on the desk.
The door slammed behind her as Clara loudly announced her entrance. She dumped her books on the ground in the parlor and flopped onto the couch beside Andrew. She pointed at the letters "What do you have there?"
He hesitated a moment as he finished reading the final page. "My family wrote!"
"Really?!" Clara bounced excitedly. "Oh, Andrew that's so exciting! It's been so long! What did they say!" Her mother started to chastise her for jumping on the couch but thought better of it given the momentous occasion and let them enjoy the moment.
"Listen! My mom's letter was first." Andrew began excitedly reading aloud. "' Dear Andrew, I hope you're feeling better and behaving for the Lemay's.' Of course, she wants to know I'm know playing pranks," He laughed before continuing,
"' We miss you very much. Your brothers talk all the time about what you would be doing if you were with us now. Our work is hard and long and tedious, so perhaps you'll prefer not toiling at the railroad. We've become friends with some of the other families who are on the train with us. Peter and John both have found playmates amongst the other young men and they're all eager to meet you one day. You'd like the nights here when we can finally rest to sit around the campfires to tell stories and look at the stars. You'd love the stars, Andrew. There's so many in the sky that you almost don't need a lantern, so many more than in Cardiff in Wales or New York where you can't see beyond the streetlights from the ground.'"
"Oh that sounds lovely," Clara sighed. "Perhaps once you're feeling better, Father can carry you up to the roof, on the fire escape, so we can go look at the stars."
"That would be very nice," He answered, voice cracking slightly. "She's worried about me. In the next paragraph, she says about how they didn't want to leave me when I was so sick, and they're sure your father is taking good care of me."
"Can you write back and tell them you're ok? I'm sure they'll all be thrilled to hear from you."
He shook his head. "They were going towards Santa Fe but I don't know where they are now."
"Oh… That's a real shame. You could have told them all about your songs and how you help my mother and how we do school together and play in the afternoons," She started to frown, but noticed Andrew's disappointed look and forced a smile instead. "But how lucky that the letter reached you! What did your father and brothers say? I'm sure they have dozens of interesting stories to tell!"
Andrew brightened at the notion of telling more about his family's adventures and began reading aloud from the letters again. He recounted his father's account of the workdays and descriptions of the other families on the team. Peter's tale of nearly missing the train out of one of their stops when he'd been distracted by a pretty girl and having to run to catch the ladder on the back of the caboose prompted a laugh from Clara as she pointed out it could hardly have been moving that fast. And James' distasteful description of the food prompted a meaningful thank you towards Mrs. Lemay (she had since moved to the kitchen to begin making their dinner for the evening), who only smiled back and told Clara to wash up, quickly, and set the table.
Clara sighed loudly in disappointment at Andrew's dramatic reading being cut short by her mother's directive but did as she was told nonetheless. "Once you're better, you have to start doing some chores around here too, Andrew," she announced loudly as she came back downstairs from the washroom, though her tone was unmistakably humorous.
"Tell that to the dress you ruined getting the stick we used to play games back in the cell. I keep folding it when you're at school," Andrew responded.
Clara stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to her job. "You're welcome."
Andrew smiled. As he waited for Mr. Lemay to come home and ferry him to the table, he re-read the letters for a third time, trying to commit every word to memory, trying to hear each sentence in their voices. He could almost imagine James's animated gestures and the silly lovestruck look on Peter's face. He could almost feel his father's heavy, protective hand on his shoulder and his mother's hug.
This stupid polio made him lose them. He loved the Lemay's, they'd been so kind to him and Mrs. Lemay's cooking really was better than the camp food, but he missed his family too.
No matter what, this letter proved something important – that one day, he would find his family again. And that hope was enough for him.
A/N: Hopefully this was a bit lighter of a chapter to improve your Monday! This was originally part of the original chapter 7 I wrote weeks ago and intended to publish yesterday, but upon editing, I decided to expand it and change it into two chapters instead. The whole point of the backlog was to avoid writing updates at the eleventh hour and here I am anyhow. :P
Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed! I'm glad you're all liking it so far!