West For Love (A Mail Order Romance Novel) Read Online Free Page B

Anna to
read.
    Anna shook her head. “No. No more
sad stories. I can’t. You don’t understand what it’s like for me...”
    “No, this isn’t a new one,” Mary
said. “A week after receiving the first letter, I received a second. This one
from Thomas himself.”
    Anna almost jumped out of her chair
to get the letter. She couldn’t believe she was eager to read something from a
stranger. But Josephine’s letter had been so poignant and heartfelt that Anna
wanted to read it and feel it from Thomas’s broken heart. Maybe it would help
her. Nothing more. Just to read... just to know someone else felt pain and
loneliness too.
    “I’m going to be honest with you,
Anna,” Mary said. “Besides myself, I believe your eyes will be the only other
eyes to see this. I haven’t shown it to Henry. And I have not shown it to
anyone looking for a groom. Something about this touches me and I have been
looking for the right woman.”
    With that said, Mary handed Anna
the letter. She took two steps back but didn’t leave the room. This time, Anna
didn’t care one bit. She wanted to read what Thomas had to say.
     
    I
am Thomas, as previously indicated in the first letter. I will first say that
the previous letter was sent without my permission. While I tried to insist
Josephine leave my house right away for her careless actions, it was my son,
Thomas Jr., who saved her employment. She is the only one Thomas will bond
with. The sight is truly miraculous but also heartbreaking. Each time his small
lips latch to Josephine, I feel more of my heart shedding its own tears. You
see, when my son receives the milk God has given Josephine, he receives the
nourishment to grow. To become strong. To be healthy. And perhaps with that
will come one day an understanding of what happened to his mother. That gives
me hope. At the same time, in the same breath of my own air (mind you, the air
my deceased wife cannot breathe), I feel a wretched feeling. Because when Thomas
Jr. latches to Josephine, pain and anger hits me like none I’ve ever felt. I’m
inclined to sometimes tear the baby from Josephine’s giving breast and tell her
that she’s not his mother. While she does not try to be his mother, there’s
something that leaves me compelled to do so. It’s something Josephine has
sensed in me and something she’s spoken out loud to me about before. Which is
why she wrote the letter she did. I’m in understanding that Thomas Jr. deserves
a woman to care for him completely. To nurture, to love, to raise. Josephine won’t
be that woman but it’s Josephine who believes that I should have the same as
Thomas Jr. That is, a woman to nurture me and to love me. While I don’t fear
love, I fear that a woman may not understand my heart, my eyes, and the way
pain comes and goes, like a breeze on a cool April eve. Josephine explained all
she wrote in her letter and I do hope that if a response should come, if ever,
it would be from a woman who understands pain. A woman who is perhaps widowed,
jilted, even divorced. A woman who can be a good mother. Thinking this, writing
this, and reading it leaves me smiling in a heartbroken, foolish way because I
know the task is daunting and odds are next to impossible. But with this letter
comes my hope and if that at all means anything - to know my heart is still
beating - then I beg of the woman who reads this... the woman who could
nurture, love, and grow... please respond. I am a man of capable means with a
successful farm and moderate wealth. There is no need to come worried of
shelter nor food. There is only need to come with an open heart, an open mind,
and open eyes.
     
    Anna finished the letter and this
time let a tear fall from her eye.
    How beautiful.
    How poetically beautiful and
powerful.
    “Do you understand why I haven’t
shown that letter to just anyone?” Mary asked.
    “No,” Anna said, “but I’m happy you
showed me.”
    “Anna, if I gave that letter to
anyone, they’d write back in