Three Letters with No Return Address
The air was still—no wind, no rustling leaves, no birdsong—as if even nature had paused in eternal silence. The mourners stood quietly around the open casket and the gaping grave beside it. Emily held her father’s arm. He stood hunched, lost, staring intently at her mother’s face.
Nearby were her parents’ old friends: Margaret and her husband Vincent. Emily had known them since childhood, always calling them by their first names. Margaret dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, while Vincent gazed blankly over the coffin into the distance. Opposite Emily and her father stood three of her mother’s colleagues, their noses red, eyes swollen from crying. Others, strangers to Emily, had come too. If they were here, they must have known her mother.
No one stepped forward anymore to say goodbye or offer condolences. That had all been done at the funeral home. Now, they only waited for the ceremony to end.
Emily caught the eye of one of the gravediggers, the one in charge, who seemed to be waiting for her signal. She gave a slight nod. It was time. The men lifted the coffin lid leaning against a tree and moved toward the casket.
“Everyone said their goodbyes?” the gravedigger asked. “We’re closing it now.”
Then, a quiet but firm voice cut through the silence.
“Wait.”
Every head turned. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat approached. The workers hesitated, the lid still in their hands. The stranger laid two white roses in the casket and rested his palm over her mother’s folded hands, as if trying to warm them. He stood like that for minutes while the others watched, wondering who he was. One of the gravediggers coughed impatiently. The man finally stepped back. The workers secured the lid, lowered the casket, and began shovelling dirt into the grave. Emily tossed the first handful of soil.
As the grave was filled, Emily searched for the stranger, but he had vanished. Once the cross and wreaths were placed, the mourners began filing out. Emily and her father lingered a little longer.
“Dad, let’s go,” she said softly, and he let her lead him away.
On the walk home, she wondered about the man. He had appeared and disappeared without a trace. His face had been hidden beneath the hat’s brim—she’d only glimpsed a clean-shaven chin and perhaps glasses, though she wasn’t sure.
The wake was held at a nearby café. Emily couldn’t eat. She was exhausted, willing the day to end. Finally, the last guests left. She and her father walked home in silence, her mother’s framed portrait clutched to her chest, a duplicate of the one left at the graveside.
“You alright?” she asked her father.
He only nodded.
“Dad… who was that man at the cemetery?”
“How should I know?”
There was an edge in his voice. They didn’t speak again until they reached the house. The flat still smelled of illness and medicine, despite the open windows.
Her father lay down on the sofa, eyes closed. Emily covered him with a blanket and sat beside him.
She glanced at the door to her mother’s room. *”At peace now,”* she repeated silently, echoing the words of nearly every mourner. Peace for all of them—her mother, free from suffering; Emily, from the dread of waiting; her father, from helplessness.
Tears welled up. She retreated to the kitchen, buried her face in her arms, and wept.
Gradually, the pain dulled. Emily cleared away the remnants of her mother’s illness. She attended university but felt hollow and alone.
Her father barely spoke, shuffling around the house like an old man. The sound of his slippers grated on her. Did he think his grief was greater than hers? She had lost a mother. Now, she carried the weight of the household and him.
“Dad, what should we do with Mum’s clothes? They don’t fit me,” she asked once, just to make him talk.
“I don’t know. Give them away.”
Easier said than done. That weekend, she sorted through them. The newer items she kept; the worn-out ones she bundled for the bin. Throwing them out felt wrong, though she didn’t know why.
Her mother’s shoes didn’t fit either. She left the old pairs by the bins, hoping someone might take them. Then, in one box, she found pristine white pumps. She tried them—too big—and as she packed them away, she spotted three yellowed envelopes at the bottom, postmarked two decades ago. Two were addressed to her mother, a month apart; the third, two years later. None had a return address.
Why had her mother hidden them? Why keep them at all? Reading them felt wrong, but her mother was gone. Maybe the writer was too. As she worked, Emily’s eyes kept drifting back to the envelopes.
She wouldn’t rest until she knew. If there had been a true secret, her mother wouldn’t have left them. Maybe she *wanted* them found.
Emily opened the first letter.
*You’re my happiness. I miss you already… I thank God for you. I think of you always, I love you…*
A lover’s words. A man who had left her.
The second letter was different.
*I feared this, but it was inevitable. What will you do? You know I’m married—I never hid that. I have two children… I won’t leave them. You’re young, beautiful. You’ll marry, have a life. If you keep the child, tell me. I’ll send money—don’t refuse. It’s the least I can do…*
More followed—regret, longing, lamenting their ill timing.
She read the third.
*I know I failed you. But what could I do? You named her Emily? I’m leaving… I don’t know if I’ll return. Live. Be free. Forget me. Keep our secret. Burn these letters…*
No signatures. Only, at the end of the last letter, a tiny checkmark shaped like a bird.
So her father wasn’t her father. There was another—a man her mother had loved before, who had left her. It was like something out of a novel. Important, too, if he wouldn’t sign his name.
Why hadn’t her mother burned them? Couldn’t bring herself to? Forgotten?
*What do I do with this?* Without the letters, she’d never have known. But her father was still her father—he’d sat by her bed when she was ill, scolded her when she smoked, loved her without question. That other man had abandoned them.
She hid the letters beneath her clothes. Her father would never look there.
Her parents had hardly argued. She’d never doubted that he was hers. He had loved her mother. Loved her. He was grieving now. Her mother had been beautiful before the illness. Emily looked nothing like her—nor like her father, she realized with a start.
She wouldn’t tell him. Wouldn’t ask. He had no one else. To tell him the truth would be to take everything from him.
She thought of the man at the graveside. *Had it been him?* If so, he’d loved her mother, in his way. But why hide? Was he someone important?
*So many secrets. Mum, you could’ve been a spy.*
By her fourth year at university, a prestigious magazine celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with a gala. The journalism department received invitations.
One went to Christopher, a promising writer already published in newspapers. He and Emily had just started dating.
“Fancy going?” he asked, waving the ticket.
“Of course!” she beamed.
The ballroom was crowded with luminaries. Champagne flutes circulated on silver trays. Speeches were made, toasts raised.
On the wall hung the magazine’s logo—an open journal with a torn page shaped like a bird in flight. It nagged at her.
“What does the logo mean?” she asked a passing guest.
“That’s a gull—the magazine’s symbol. Didn’t you know? It was founded by Jonathan Seagull. You’ve heard of him?” He nudged her. “There he is.”
Emily turned and saw a distinguished silver-haired man in gold-rimmed glasses.
She gasped, startling Christopher. *The checkmark—the gull—the signature.* And the founder’s surname: *Seagull.* No coincidence.
She rushed toward him before he could disappear again. But up close, she faltered.
“I’m Emily Fairchild,” she blurted.
A few heads turned. His eyes were unreadable behind the glare of his glasses.
“Anne Fairchild was my mother. Do you remember her?”
A pause. Then, softly: “Let’s talk in the hall.”
They sat on a sofa.
“What do you want, Emily?”
“You were at her funeral. I recognised you. I read your letters—all three. She didn’t burn them. I think she meant me to find them. I don’t wantShe kept the letters as a quiet reminder of a past that no longer mattered, and walked away without looking back.
