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Dear Daddy,
I don't know how to start this letter so I'm just going to start it. Letters were are more of your thing anyways. Fritz could not believe how worried I was to get a letter from you, but then, he never got one, so what would he know. he doesn't didn't get it.
Now, though, it's my turn to write you a letter. I put it off for a long time. And I am still I'm a better talker than a writer, you know that, but this is important, so I wanted to do it in a way you'd appreciate. That's what Sharon That was suggested to me by someone I'll
I just spent five hours of my very short
Daddy, there's no way to tell you this in a way that you're going to like so here it is: Fritz and I broke up. It breaks my heart every day, even with what else I'm going to say, but I need to tell you that first. I loved him with my whole heart at one point. He did too for me. And it wasn't enough. Wasn't ever right the way it was with you and Mama, and I grieve grieve it every day, not having found that with who I was supposed to.
Now you didn't like that, but you'll
I needed to tell you that in order to talk about this next part. I'm scared of what you'll It's happier. I'm happier. I found someone I love, Daddy, and this one feels like you and Mama.
You know those parades they throw in Atlanta in June?
I think this person is wonderful, and you will too. I know it. But first you need to know
I want you to not see me any different, and I'm
Her name is Sharon Raydor, and yes, she's a she. AKA a woman. I don't know how to explain this in any way that will make sense She's just all sort of things I can't even figure out
"I don't know how to write it, Sharon, and I've been banging my head against a wall all day trying to figure out the right words," Brenda huffs from her makeshift desk at Sharon's dining table.
Sharon looks over from where she's finishing her work at her kitchen counter to see Brenda pushed away from said makeshift desk and slumping back in her chair, eyes closed and head dangling back over the seat back. The soft golden light of the setting sun coming through the open patio doors makes her glow, even as she sighs, grimaces, and roughly runs a hand through her hair.
"How on Earth did this man ever manage to write me as many letters as he has?" Brenda mutters, arms dropping to hang limply at her sides. "Especially all the angry ones?"
"You must just move him to words," Sharon says with a smirk. Brenda just scowls at that, eyes still closed as Sharon comes up to the table and lays down a plate with a cut up apple, a dollop of peanut butter, and a small pile of chocolate chips. She steps around Brenda's slumped form to stand behind her, and reaches around the seat back to rub at Brenda's tense neck and shoulders. Still scowling, the woman melts into the touch, reaches back and pulls Sharon closer by her thigh.
"Why did you ever suggest I write this?" Brenda sighs.
"Oh, I suggested the letter? I don't think so," Sharon replies, kneading her thumbs into a particularly tight knot that makes Brenda groan, half pain, half pleasure. After it starts to release, she smooths over the spot with her palm. If her lower back hadn't been threatening a riot all day, she'd bend down to kiss it.
"You basically did. You said, 'well, if you're so worried about a letter, why don't you just send him one?'" Brenda grunts and twists her head so Sharon can focus on the other side of her neck. "If that ain't a suggestion I don't know what is."
"I just said that perhaps it would be helpful if you wrote him instead of calling him." With a final squeeze, Sharon steps over to stand back at Brenda's side, looking down at the woman with both a warm smile and a pointedly raised eyebrow. "Given how much he complains nowadays about being on the phone, and how many, many letters you've said he's sent you over the years."
Brenda swats lightly at her leg. "So, obviously, you suggested it. That's the definition of a suggestion."
"If you don't want to write the letter…." Sharon rolls the dice to bend down and kiss the top of Brenda's head. Her back protests, but holds. "…then don't. Just call him." The scents of Brenda's shampoo and conditioner, florals both, are long gone from the shower she took over here last night before bed. Now Sharon gets washed over with a smell that's all Brenda—concentrated, a bit musky, heady enough to make her stay and take it in a little bit longer.
It's a nice moment that ends when Brenda, finally catching up to her reply, squawks a bit in protest and turns around to glare at her. "Absolutely not! I'm not a quitter." She crosses her arms over her chest and looks back out the patio doors, squinting at the sun setting over the hills in the distance. "And anyways, I really do think this is the best way to tell him." A huff. "Even if torture would be kinder."
"Oh? Despite the fact that you've been at it for a day—"
"A day and a half, nearly," Brenda cuts in.
"—for so long that you're now schlumping around about it?"
"I am not schlumping," Brenda snaps, scoffing as she scoots her chair back up to the table. "I just…need to get my words in order. And that's hard, about something like…this."
Sharon's eyes wander over to the draft on the table. Brenda's writing on a legal pad she's almost certainly stolen—or "borrowed," as she'd say—from someone, maybe from work, maybe from Sharon herself. The handwriting ranges from the more deliberate script she's seen on Brenda's FID reports and forms to the tighter scrawl that shows up on quick notes and lists fished out of her bag. The ink changes a few times throughout it, too, black to blue, gel to ballpoint, some pens dying in the midst of all the scratching out. While Brenda might be prone to stretching the truth from time to time, Sharon can see plain and clear that she has, in fact, been putting in some time with this.
And though it's not the first time she's seen her own name written in Brenda's hand, not by a long shot, when Sharon sees it towards the bottom of this very important letter, her breath still catches a bit.
"Honey," Sharon says softly, bringing her hand back up to rest against Brenda's neck. A beat, then: "I know you can write this letter. You know you can write this letter."
Brenda turns to cast half a wary glance back at Sharon.
"And," Sharon continues, "I've seen you get your words in order very quickly in higher stakes situations than this…when you're talking. It's already hard. Why not play to your strengths?"
"Because," Brenda says, then stops. She throws her arms out and leans on the table, arms bracketing the legal pad, fingers finding the Bic pen she's been using during this session and spinning it around and around. "Because. I should be able to put all…to put everything into words. All of—this. With you."
Sharon's mouth opens. Closes. No, she needs a minute, even if she's dying to hear what's going to come next.
Eventually, Brenda does continue: "In any medium, writing or talking or whatever, I should be able to talk about you. And writing is—it's how my daddy's always put his thoughts down, when they're important enough that he wants you to have to hold them in your hands. Hold them and keep them." Brenda stops spinning the pen all of a sudden. Looks to the side, then up at Sharon, eyes jumping all over her face before she settles and looks her straight in the eye. "And you're important enough for me to do that, too, to want to do that about…us."
A slow smile spreads across Sharon's face as she holds Brenda's gaze, easy and warm and as light as this morning when they'd woken up a few minutes apart and rolled into each other's arms.
"And that's why it's—" Brenda looks back at the table as she flicks the pad away from her a bit with a sigh, "—killin' me that I just can't find the words to figure out how to break the news to him. It has to be just right. It can't be too much of a shock, I've got to ease him in so he listens to me instead of just flying off the handle, but I—every time I try and put it down, it—it doesn't—I can't get—"
"Brenda."
Sharon reaches up and caresses Brenda's cheek, holds it in her palm and asks with a nudge for Brenda to look up at her. Brenda does. Her back be damned, Sharon leans down and kisses her, long, deep, with the force of all those words that can't be found, until Brenda goes slack in her grasp.
Only then does Sharon pull back a touch. "Take a break," she says, low and soft, lips still close enough that she can feel them brush against Brenda's as she talks. "Let's eat. You can come back to it."
She can feel the fight still raging in Brenda, the tension creeping its way back in at the suggestion she let go of the bone she's got locked tight in her jaws, so Sharon leans back in and gives Brenda a teasing little kiss, nips and tugs at her lips in a way that draws a sharp groan from Brenda—all pleasure, this time. Sure enough, Brenda pulls her in by the back of her neck, all that tension turned to hunger in an instant. By the time they part again, it's a bit of a fight for Sharon, even, to remember exactly what she was luring Brenda away from.
"Alright, Sharon," Brenda finally says, breathy and a touch strained. "Alright. A little break."
Sharon smiles wide and leads Brenda up and away from the pen and pad, snack plate in one hand, Brenda's fingers intertwined with her own in the other.