Tommy looks particularly skeptical. “Like what?”
“Once I had a student write to an executive at Coca-Cola, and they sent us free cans of Coke for the whole class.” She can’t think of any other examples just then, but she knows there are many, as she taught school for many years. She wonders if they still cover letter writing in school now. She doubts it.
“Whoop-de-do,” says Tommy. “Free cans of Coke.”
Ignoring him, Sylvie asks Morrow, “Do you still remember the parts of a letter?”
Morrow makes a stricken face. “Oh goodness. Let me think. Um... there’s the part where you write, like, where you are and... the date? Right?” She looks to Sylvie, who nods.
“That’s the heading,” Sylvie says. She makes a little motion for Morrow to continue.
“And then there’s the part where you say ‘Dear so-and-so.’ And that’s the... greeting!”
Sylvie claps her hands together and nods her affirmation, remembering her years in the classroom. She did love teaching, but she does not miss it as much as she misses that time in her life, the whole of it. The work and the family and the day-to-day routine she took for granted. Sometimes in her dreams she goes back to that time, to the house they raised their son in. She is never doing anything special in the dream, just going about her normal life. She is always sad when she wakes up. This would likely surprise her younger self if she knew that someday she’d literally dream about that harried, hurried time in her life.
Morrow continues, caught up in the challenge and glad for something to think about besides the situation. “And then there’s the part where you just say what you have to say.” Again, she looks to Sylvie. “But I don’t remember what that’s called.”
“That’s the body of the letter. It’s actually in three parts: your introduction, your main points, and your summary. Or, as I used to tell my students: Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.”
Tommy pretends to snore, but they all ignore him.
“Ha. I’ve never heard that,” says Morrow, who is thinking that if people communicated this succinctly now, maybe more would get accomplished. She wonders if, when people lost the art of letting writing, they lost some core part of culture. But she doesn’tadd her commentary; she just says, “I remember being tested on this.”
“You got tested on letter writing?” Tommy interjects, and Sylvie turns to him, ignoring his comment and lobbing a question at him instead. She did this with the troublemakers in her classrooms too.
“Okay,” she says. “So what do you think comes after the body?”
“The grave?” Tommy says, then laughs at his own joke as they all roll their eyes. Even still, Blythe feels a little shiver go down her back as he says it. No matter how much it was said in jest, it’s never good for the man holding you captive with a gun to be making jokes about bodies and graves.
Sylvie ignores him again and continues with her impromptu lesson. “So we’ve got the heading, the greeting, the body. But there are five parts total. So”—she looks over at Morrow—“don’t you answer this. Let’s see if the young people can guess.” Morrow smiles and nods.
“So you’ve said what you want to say. Now what’s next?”
“You have to close it out?” asks Nadine.
Sylvie claps her hands together. “Yes! Exactly! The closing!”
“No fair,” says Tommy. “She probably already knew that because she works here.”
Nadine turns on Tommy. “I did not! I guessed it. I mean, if you’ve said all you have to say—if there’s nothing left to be said—it’s time to end it.”
Nadine stops talking and chews on her lip as her words seem to reverberate through the room. For a moment no one says anything as Tommy and Nadine look at each other. For once Tommy doesn’t look angry. He just looks sad.
Blythe speaks up before things can go in an altogether different direction. “So what’s number five?” she asks. She doesn’tcare what the fifth part of a letter is. She just wants to move the conversation past this awkward moment.
Sylvie is no longer caught up in the lesson. Perhaps she should’ve kept her mouth shut and not started this. It seems there is nothing in this room that cannot turn on a dime. Her voice is quiet when she says, “The final part is the signature, and we knowwhat that is.”
For a time no one speaks. But then Tommy does. “What about the PS?” he asks.
All four heads turn to look at him; then, blinking, four sets of eyes return to Sylvie. One thing she always understood about teaching: It is a responsibility, one to be taken seriously. Where you lead, your students will follow. At the moment she feels this acutely.
“Yes,” she says. “You’re right. The PS can be part of a letter. It stands for postscript, and it’s something that can be added on after the end, below the signature line.” She treads carefully, weighing her words before she says them. “It can be something you forgot to say earlier that you’d like to add, or a reminder to the person you’re sending it to. Something you don’t want them to forget.”
Tommy nods and looks down at the gun that rests in his lap. “I thought so,” he says. “I thought there was still something left.”
Chapter 28
Outside, Hope and Bo wait for the pizzas to arrive. She has stretched the wait out long enough. Hope would like the pizza delivery to be wrapped up before the convoy from county arrives, which, according to an update from Hank, should be anytime now and, likely, the end of the road for her. She will no doubt be relieved of duty once the higher-ups get here. There is talk that the Feds are en route as well. They definitely won’t need her then.
