Juliette

September 7th, 1940

Corporal Eisenhower was tending to his Sargent’s leg when the field was obliterated.  Some new enemy technology, a white wedge that spanned the horizon, had slid under the door of the closet, and after wiping out their front line troops without slowing, had come for the Corporal.  No matter what you do, it always comes for you.  So it goes.

Peter was playing with his plastic army men when the letter slid under the closet door.  It scattered his carefully built legion, the considered work of an entire ten minutes.  Typically, this sort of unplanned maneuver would frustrate him, but he never received letters, and he certainly never received them from under his closet door.

From the wisdom Peter had gained in his eight and half years, letters came in through the mailbox, or were handed directly to his Father’s stern hands.  Sometimes on holidays the letters were addressed to him.  Peter loved it when they were addressed to him, and he’d plant himself in his mother’s warm lap and read it with her.

The letter in question was in fact not addressed to him, but to a Dr. Edwards.  Here though, Peter dreamed up a bit of enticing magic.  His middle name was Edward, and so if he adopted the nickname of Dr. Edwards, well then it was clear the letter was actually addressed to him.  And so, the newly crowned Dr. Edwards looked around to make sure there was no one looking, and tore the letter open.

Don’t follow the boys to the warehouse, stay home instead.  Everything will be okay, these days of fire will pass.

Peter flipped the letter over, but there was nothing more.  He hid the letter safely under his bed, and grabbed his school bag.  He’d decided it was best to not share the cryptic letter with anyone, but his mind was dazzled with the possibilities of what it meant.

At school that day, Peter’s friend George invited him to a warehouse he’d found where munitions for the war were being manufactured.  These nights of sneaking around were some of his favorite, but he immediately thought of the letter’s warning from that morning.  So instead of joining George, he lied and said he was expected at home that evening.

Peter regretted not telling George almost immediately; he couldn’t help wondering if he had been given this knowledge so that he told others.  What forces in the universe were at play here?  Was he meant to tell others to stay home?  He hoped that George was safe tonight.

When the bombs fell, Peter was watching his mother peel potatoes for dinner.  A screeching split the air, a potato slipped from his mother’s grasp, an explosion upended the world.  Peter was launched into the wall behind him, their family dinner table pinning him down.  The world continued ending around him in an unending parade of violence.  Scream.  Explosion.  Shattering glass.  Scream.  Explosion.  The curious heave of a house falling.  The acrid smell of burning.  Peter passed out.

Over 400 people died that night.  The primary target were the munitions facilities that peppered the city interior, and those nearby paid the heaviest price.  Thousands more would die in the coming weeks as the bombs continued to fall; war had come to England.

March 15th, 1953

As the years passed, Peter stopped believing he’d ever received that letter.  It seemed some imagined artifice of childhood to cope with the tragedy of the bombing raids, and the guilt of surviving.  Peter had lost so much during those months; his friends, his parents, and his home were all buried in the rubble.  

The end of the war had brought opportunity, scientists were highly sought after and government programs helped get the population back into schools.  From these programs, Peter was able to escape the orphanage he’d been placed in with a prestigious grant to study Physics in Oxford.  He’d been brilliant as a child, but in Oxford he was given wings, and was finally able to soar.  By the end of his second year, he was the top of his class.

All of this had led him to the Oxford Library, the famous Bodleian, where he sat studying his Differential Equations textbook.  The library was vacant except for one other studying across the hall, a French woman named Juliette who was in his class.  They had exchanged furtive glances when Peter had sat down, but both were absorbed now in their study.  Peter thumbed back in the textbook to check an earlier theorem, and a letter fell into his lap.

He stared at it, heart beating in his throat.  Tears welled in his eyes as he saw the Dr. Edwards scrawled on the front.  He tore it open.

Juliette is the one for you.  Don’t let her get away chap, there isn’t a better woman.  Trust me, you’ll need this.

The letter paper was stained with water, but there was no signature.  Peter tipped the envelope, and a diamond ring rolled into his palm.  He stared at it, mystified.  He’d had his textbook with him all day, no one could have slipped this letter in.  He looked around to see if someone was watching him, and his gaze locked with Juliette’s dark brown eyes.  She smiled, blushed, and turned back to her study.

Peter laughed inwardly, and tucked the letter and ring into his pocket.  He might as well pull on this thread to see where it led.  He stood up and walked over to Juliette’s table.

“Hi, my name is Edward.  I think we’re both in Differential Equations, do you want to study together?”

July 16th, 1969

Peter had known violence, but Edward had known magic.  His life with Juliette had started that night in the library, and since then they’d become inseparable.  They studied together, they laughed together, they grew together.  They were two comets blazing parallel paths through the night sky, wrapped in each other’s gravity.  They both graduated with a doctorate, and immediately took jobs in America’s space program.  Before they left in 1960, Peter officially changed his name and embraced the magic; then he proposed to Juliette with a ring that had sat in his pocket for years.  They were married in the Bodleian.

They worked tirelessly on a project so demanding it enveloped them, but never separated them.  Juliette would see solutions to problems before the problem even occurred; she was like a chess player building a strategy several moves ahead of everyone else.  Together, they did the work to send humanity to the moon.

Then in early 1969, they had found out a poison was growing in Juliette.  Her cough had grown worse till she couldn’t enjoy the cigarettes she loved, and they’d taken a journey to the doctor.  This cancer will kill her, but we can do our best to extend her life; the doctor drawled in a heavy Texas accent to Peter, who sat outside the exam room.  He had changed his name but the violence was inescapable.  He and Juliette cried and held each other that night; she had already decided to not have any intervention.

A roar split the command center as the Apollo 11 rocket launched, everything turned golden in the glow of the engines.  Crying, he held Juliette’s hand and watched her eyes trace the arc of the rocket into the heavens.  Her body was already crumbling, her skin wrapped tightly across her frail frame.  He had never loved her more.

September 18th 1969

When Juliette took her last breath, the release was a relief.  He had watched her slowly waste away in hospice care, until she was no longer conscious.  He had sung to her, and held her hand, and caught brief snatches of her eyelids fluttering open.  The tide of grief had been building for months, and when the heart rate monitor flat-lined, it crashed over the levies and drowned him.

The days after were a blur.  He mechanically organized her last rites, made calls to inform her family and friends, and he drifted.  Juliette had anchored him, and now he only saw a vast expanse of open ocean around him.  He was handed an urn of her ashes, and when he went home, he stood in the door of a place that now felt foreign.  He started a fire, poured a glass of scotch, and sunk into an armchair.

As he finished his glass, he noticed that a letter had materialized on the table next to his chair.  It looked like it had always been there, but he was sure it hadn’t.  Another letter for Dr. Edwards.

He hefted the envelope, and as he felt the rage rise through him he nearly threw it directly into the fire.  He wanted so badly to watch it burn, to destroy this thing that had brought him here, that had brought him as much beauty as pain.  But the letter felt thick, and curiosity gnawed at him; he opened it.

There is no loss greater than losing her, I still feel it every day.  Your grief will rise and fall like the tide, but over time you will find it manageable.  You will miss her for the rest of your life, but eventually you will just be happy to have known her.  Trust me friend, there is still happiness left in life.  There can even be love left, if you seek it.

The choice is yours, it’s always been yours.  If you could do it all over, what would you choose?  Write the letters, and if you believe a little bit, they will find their way.

Sincerely,

Peter

He stared at the page, stunned.  It had always been him.  

The first letter came easily; he remembered those days of fire and death and shuddered.  He just wanted to keep that little boy safe.  He wrote it, addressed it, and slid it underneath the door of his closet.  When he opened the door, it was gone.

The second letter took him the rest of the night.  He remembered how carefree the letter read, and how easy life had been at university.  He saw Juliette again that first night in the library, and cried as he wrote it.  When he was done, he grabbed her ring, kissed it, and tucked it into the envelope.  This one he put in the same Differential Equations textbook, it sat on the bookcase collecting dust.  As soon as he put the letter in-between the pages, it disappeared.

He would always choose her, no matter how many times he wound up at this place.

The last letter he’d wait to write until he believed it.