Prologue
Georgia
Hi,
Thank you for your service. I hope this package finds you safe, and that it brightens your day, even just a little bit.
I know you don’t know me, and I don’t know you either, but I know you’re from LA County, so I thought I’d tell you what home looks like right now.
It’s early November, and Los Angeles is pretending it has seasons. The air is cooler in the mornings, just enough for jackets, and there are Christmas decorations going up even though Thanksgiving isn’t here yet. Downtown is already planning parades. Everything feels like it’s rushing toward the holidays.
I hope you’re safe. I hope you’re warm. I hope someone is thinking of you where you are. I hope that you are not…
I pause, pen hovering above the card, my stomach twisting with something akin to nerves.
This is too personal.
I lean back in my chair and look around my office cubicle as if someone might be watching me overshare to a stranger. It’s nearly six, most of the floor is already empty and the overhead lights are dimmed to that end-of-day glow. The stack of care packages sits against the far wall, taped shut and labeled, waiting to be picked up.
“Veterans Day care packages,” the email had said. “Optional letters encouraged.”
Optional. Right.
I glance back down at the card in front of me.
I could stop now. Tear it up. Start over with something safer.“Thank you for your service. Wishing you well…”Something impersonal and polite.
Instead, my fingers tighten around the pen.
I’d meant for this to be simple. A few kind words for someone deployed overseas who might be missing home as the holidays creep closer. I know the unit receiving the packages is from LA County—someone mentioned it offhand in a meeting—and that detail had made it feel easier. Less abstract. Like I was writing to a neighbor instead of a faceless soldier halfway across the world.
Still…this feels like more than that.
My phone buzzes softly on my desk. I glance down at the screen to see a text from my sister, Alex. My mouth shifts into the ghost of a smile even before I read the words.
I didn’t tell you earlier but I’m not coming home for the break. Traveling with friends instead. Please don’t be mad.
I swallow and type back quickly.
I’m not mad. I’m happy for you.
And I am. I really am. She deserves joy and freedom and a life untouched by the things we grew up with. In the past, we lived with so much fear and uncertainty of what the next minute held. We never knew whether our father would be sane or in one of his dark moods. With no mom to protect us, I’d had tostep up even as a child myself. Because of the things we endured together, we have come to rely on each other for strength and companionship, but since Alex got a full ride to a university in Texas, she’s started to make friends and build a life for herself away from California, and while I’m very happy for her, it often emphasizes the emptiness of my own life. But I would never hold her back just because I’m lonely.
The hollow feeling in my chest deepens as I set the phone down.
I look back at the card.
Maybe that’s why this feels so personal. Because it’s coming from a part of me that I have neglected, kept hidden for the longest time—that little girl inside of me that is yearning for love, for compassion, that part that needs saving… Maybe a lonely soldier in the heart of some desert would be able to understand.
Maybe not. At worst, I’ll come off as some faceless whiny, lonely woman.
I lower the pen and keep writing.
I tell him about working at a record label, not the glamorous parts, just the ordinary ones. I keep it vague on purpose. No names. No addresses. I’m careful. But I don’t lie. I write about liking routine. About noticing small things. About how a city can be full of people and still feel empty sometimes.
Halfway through a sentence, I stop again.
Why are you telling him all of this?
