Believe it or not, I miss our heated discussions about politics. Raegan can’t stand talking about Congress, and Wynnie’s not much different. So, maybe you’ll find time to send me back a note. You can even tell me what makes the Republicans so great, though bear in mind, I’ll take plenty of time to write a full rebuttal before I respond.
Truth be told, I’m getting up there in age and I was hoping I could give you an emergency key. Obviously, Wynnie and Rae have keys already, but if I should end up like that God-awful Life Alert commercial, the girls aren’t the people I want to call first – if you know what I mean? Of course, a strapping young man such as yourself probably doesn’t want to be the first on my list of phone calls either, but you’re certainly strong enough to get me from point A to some other point so I won’t be as embarrassed when the hot firefighters show up.
If you don’t have time for an old woman like me, I understand. If you have a girlfriend who doesn’t like this idea... well, I’d say I understand that too, but really, what kind of woman is she to frown on keeping my emergency key? Oh, look what I’ve done. I told myself not to be too motherly in this letter, and I’ve gone and done it anyway.
Have a Merry Christmas and keep an eye out. You’ll get another missive in roughly a week.
Sincerely,
Penny Connelly
With a chuckle, I wondered how Raegan would take that letter. There wasn’t anything damning in it, so it wouldn’t hurt for her to read it.
She moseyed out of the bathroom wearing one of my t-shirts, and I bit my lip. It was the strangest damn thing to me but seeing her in my clothes made me feel like she belonged to me.
She perched on the side of the bed a foot or so away from me. I didn’t like the distance, but I set the first letter down for her to read.
I grabbed the envelope to get it out of her way. To speed things up, I got the next letter ready for her. Whenever I read the first one, I couldn’t bear to skip the second, so I reread it.
12/31/17
Dear Clint,
Happy birthday! Postal service willing, this card and letter reached you on your special day, if not in advance.
It’s too soon for you to have responded to my first letter – assuming you got it – but I do hope you at least banter with me about politics. Wynnie tells me people are doing their own TV shows on computers... you never know, you and I could give those Meet the Press people a run for their money.
Anyway, I know I said it plenty when you were around, but it’s worth repeating. You get jipped on your birthday, so do whatever it takes to make it special.
Best wishes,
Penny
Raegan reached out and took it from me. Her eyes widened and she gave an outraged sigh before she closed the birthday card. She shook her head and looked at me. “Can you imagine? You two streaming on YouTube or some shit. As if.”
I tilted my head. “Yeah. I said about as much in my response.”
She chuckled. “I’d love to have seen your response.”
I looked to the side. “Pretty sure I still have my response stored on the cloud.”
Her head reared back, and her eyes widened. “You’ve been keeping correspondence on the cloud for the past two years?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Probably longer. I don’t trust Google, but I figure I’m one out of over three hundred million people. What I have to say to Penny or anybody else doesn’t matter that much. Shit for work, that gets done on work PCs and it’s encrypted.”
She chuckled at me, but I already had my phone out and my Google docs folder opened. I wanted to scan the letter quickly before I handed my phone over, but I was pretty sure the majority of what I wrote was shit I had already told Raegan when she first came back to town.
“Here you go, Rae. Hope you won’t be too hard on me when you’re done reading it.”
She took the phone from me, and I situated myself so I could read over her shoulder.
Dear Penny,
Thank you for your letters. I received them back to back, but from now on, you should contact me at my home address, which is on the envelope, or listed below.
I don’t know why you don’t want one of the girls to be your first call, then again... I’m not a parent. If you read nothing else though, read this: 911 should be your first call in an emergency. That might be the former cop in me speaking, but I mean it. And I hate to break it to you, the hot firefighters have undoubtedly seen it all, so you have nothing to worry about there. However, I would be honored to hang on to your emergency key. I’m not going to tell you whether there’s a woman to frown on that. I think the world of you, but I’d hate for you to start meddling and cross a line you can’t uncross with me or Raegan.
Speaking of Raegan, if I take your key, I will ONLY do it if you swear you will not tell Raegan. You can’t do that, then you’re on your own.
Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s no way I’d put in writing the many things that make conservatism more beneficial than liberalism. Which is to say, I don’t approve of many politicians regardless of party affiliations. The system’s messed up and needs a complete overhaul. There’s too much money tied
