The more you accomplish in the professional world, it seems, the lonelier you become.
Your friendships with Caleb and Dean have taken a back seat in your life, and I believe I am your closest confidante and friend as of the last few years.
This is not a mantle I dislike or devalue; it’s quite the opposite. Knowing you so far into your life gives me immeasurable joy.
It also means that I’m so very concerned for your future when I’m gone.
I’ve tried to bring this up to you over lunches a handful of times, to no avail. I’ve inquired about your personal life, encouraged you to seek companionship in ways I never did throughout your twenties.
And I blame myself for this. I was so focused on your ambitions and urging you on professionally that I let your personal endeavors fall entirely to the wayside.
This is not a judgment in any way, so I do hope you do not take it as such. I myself was not romantically attached for much of my life, and I was very fulfilled.
The simple truth of the matter is that I do not believe you’re fulfilled, living your life the way you are.
Work alone cannot sustain you, Charlotte. This is the sentiment that I’ve voiced to you, which has fallen on deaf ears, so I hope in my death you will take it more seriously. You can be the most accomplished, successful human being on the planet, but if you have no deep, emotional connections, real happiness will evade you.
And I so very desperately want you to be happy.
I should have told you that more. I should have focused on that years ago, before this path seemed so set in stone for you.
You were in love, before. With the Spencer girl. I was too dismissive of it at the time because of how little I valued romance in my own world. These days, I think back on that time in your life, and I think about how happy you were. How light you’d seemed. And how you haven’t had that lightness ever since.
My work made me happy, but as I reflect on my life, it’s you that I think of most often. I think of you, your happiness, your future.
I need that for you.
Make no mistake; you have worked too hard, too long, and too passionately pursuing your dreams to abandon them.
But I need you to make the time and space for happiness. I need for you to reach the night before your ninety-seventh birthday and think not about your work, but about your loved ones.
I implore you to do whatever you can to find that lightness again, Charlotte. You deserve it.
Love,
Grandmother
She waited until Sutton lifted her eyes to meet hers and to speak again.
“I miss my grandmother. I miss her so much, and I’ve had a loneliness in my life even before she died, just as she pointed out in that letter. But after she died, it…” God, the stabbing hollowness of it ached in her chest whenever she allowed herself to go there. “It became something visceral. Something undeniable and painful and sopresent. Isn’t that crazy? How loneliness—emptiness—can be so vast?”
There were tears glistening in Sutton’s eyes, she realized as she felt her own well up.
“I look to her for the answers, even now. Even when she isn’t here to properly give them. I look to her for approval, even when she isn’t here to grant it. Even when I’m not sure if she would, even if shewerestill here. Because we didn’t have such honest, personal conversations when she was alive.”
It was something Charlotte regretted very deeply, but it was something she’d never be able to change, and she’d had to work on making peace with that fact.
“I worked on making myself available after her death. After receiving the letter. Trying to open myself up to more possibilities. Because she was right; I was alone. And I was not happy.”
She stared at Sutton intently. “Seeing you again felt like some sort of sign from the universe. A phenomenon that I do not even believe in.” She laughed, feeling only a little bit self-conscious as she admitted that aloud.
“Charlotte—”
She shook her head, though, needing to finish what she’d started. “My grandmother was right, as she so often was. Being with you had been the happiest I’d ever been in my life. So when we ran into one another again, I couldn’t let you go. I didn’t know how we could possibly get where we are right now, but I knew that, well, you really are a light in my life, darling. That’s how I feel about you. And why I’m so sure about pursuing this, despite?—”
She was cut off as Sutton surged forward, pressing her lips against Charlotte’s.
The kiss was slow and searching, not igniting anything so much as keeping the heat that had built between them all night smoldering. She leaned fully into Sutton, the softness and steadiness of her, of them, so easy for her to fall into.
