The Love Letter (Details)
citation: he Saturday Evening Post, August 1, 1959, 232(5):16-17, 48, 52, 54
alias: None
teaser: When she wrote it she never dreamed what it would lead to.
summary: Jake Belknap buys an inexpensive, legless wall desk from a nearby secondhand store. At home, he fastens it to a wall of his apartment where he intends to use it for occasional work he brings home, and to write his parents in Florida.
That evening he has a date with Roberta Haig, a woman he doesn't care if
he sees again. When he comes home at two in the morning, he wonders if he'll
ever meet a girl he desperately wants to be with, the only
way a man can get married.
Unable to sleep, he examines his new desk. Opening and examining one of three little drawers, he finds a secret compartment. In it, he finds old, blank writing paper, envelopes, some ink, a pen and pen holder. One of the envelopes is sealed. He opens it and finds a handwritten letter dated May 14, 1882.
It is a love letter from a woman to a man she loves, telling him she is
betrothed to, and must marry another. The letter's signed, Miss
Helen Elizabeth Worley, Brooklyn, New York.
Jake feels compelled to answer the letter. Using the paper,
pen and ink from the secret compartment, he writes telling her he's found
her letter, and wishes he could help her; know her. He wishes her the best in
the time and place you are.
He addresses the letter, intent on mailing it. From his stamp collection from a closet, he finds a mint condition 1869 stamp, and fastens it to the envelope. He takes the letter with him to Brock place, three blocks away, where the secondhand dealer told him the desk originated. At the nearby Wister postal substation, built just after the Civil War, he mails the letter, recalling how letters can sometimes be delayed in time.
Busying himself at work, the letter receeds in his thoughts. One afternoon
at the Manhattan public library, he sees a pictorial history of New York.
Leafing through it, he imagines Helen walking along Varney Street, now a nondescript,
joyless street,
but in 1881, spacious, and tree-lined. He wonders if
a photograph of a woman walking down the street might be Helen, and is filled
with the
most desperate yearning to be there.
That evening, he works at home, thinking of Helen. He opens a second drawer in the desk, suddenly realizing it too would have a secret compartment behind it.
He imagines there are places like the Wister postal substation, that are
remnants of the past; that at night, the boundary between
here and there wavers,
a letter dropped into a mail slot in 1959, arrives
on the other side of the slot in 1882.
He removes another a letter from the second secret compartment. In it, Helen replies to Jake's letter, professing that she too might love him if they met.
Jake replies immediately, explaining they are separated not by space, but by time. He tells her how he mailed the letter, and describes Manhattan seventy years in the future. He confesses he has fallen in love with her.
He then tells her that because there are only three drawers, she can send only one last letter into the future. He promises to wait a week before opening the third drawer's secret compartment.
When Jake opens the last compartment, he finds a small photograph of a dark-haired girl in a high-necked dress. Across the bottom Helen had written, "I will never forget."
Some time later, Jake finds Helen's grave and tombstone, with her final message to him.
words: 5,811
genre: Time (distortion)
similar: None
people: Jake Belknap, Roberta Haig, Helen Elizabeth Worley, Willy
places: New York, NY: Brooklyn, Brock Place, Manhattan, Fifth Avenue, Forty-second Street, Varney Street, Wister postal station, Brooklyn Bridge, Brunner & Holland (photographers); Florida; New Jersey
comments: Forthcoming