MBarker Prompt: You Built A Bridge On Broken Dreams

Mitzi Josefina found the box of love letters in her Aunty Greta’s closet a week after Greta’s funeral.

Nobody in the family wanted to clear out the room at her Father’s house where Greta spent the last four months of her life  for one reason and one reason only and it had nothing to do with grief.

” Greta never met a bridge she didn’t burn right to the ground. ” they- and by they I mean her brothers,  her cousin and the one friend Greta  managed to retain in her entire life always said.

Which was exactly 74 years.

So Mitzi Josefina’s Father, Spencer paid her 100.00 to pack the room up and arrange for the contents to be picked up by a donation service.

She was on her way up to Greta’s room when her father called out to her from the kitchen, ” If there’s anything you want to keep, that’s okay by me. ”

The microwave pinged. ” Just recycle any of the personal junk. ”

 

The first box Mitzi went through was a trunk full of pictures and photo albums.

In each and every picture in the photo albums Greta was posed in the center of the shot. The ones where she wasn’t in the center of were rubberband together. That included Mitzi Josefina’s  school pictures and baby pictures and pictures of their family gatherings.

There was a smaller box full the clunky jewelry Greta liked to wear and the third box was full of love letters.

She  took  a seat on the chair next to the window and  she opened one letter after another- she felt her face flush and her heart raced just a little. But she kept reading.

She made herself read them.

The letters were what you would expect from someone who had found their true love.

Their soulmate.

She read page after page of poetry- there were stories about longing and desire- there were doodles of flowers and trees and lovers entwined in ink along the margins.

Mitzi Josefina saw it there in each and every word. Her Aunt had loved someone dearly

and they had loved her back.

” Well. ” Mitzi Josefina said as she stood up and put the letter in her hand into the box. She looked at it for a minute and then she picked it back up put it back into the envelope. ” Well. ”

She picked another envelope after another and let address written in spidery script work it’s way into her head.

Then she took the box and dumped it into the trunk with the photo albums and before she slammed the lid shut she took out the pictures that had been rubberbanded together and set them on the bed.

The room was very cool and full of sunshine. It smelled like orange blossoms.

Before she started to pack up her Aunt’s other belongings she went back to the trunk and lifted the lid and she opened the box of love letters and looked down into them.

So much passion. So much love. Longing. Desire. Her Aunt had found all of that. That’s why she didn’t need her family or friends. She had found true love and it was so true that all other forms of love must have been dull and tasteless and colorless in comparison.

Mitzi lifted one of the letters up and opened it up and made herself look at who had signed them.

My Dearest Greta

How hot and bright my passion burns for you-

and at the end of the letter was a little figure with a flower in her hair and under that the letter was signed-

I’m yours forever, body and soul-

Greta.