Letters B, C, and D

Dear Reader,
None of these letters are written by me.

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Dear Mary,
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I yearn for you tragically.
A.T. Tappman
Chaplain, U.S. Army

Censoring Officer: Irving Washington

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Dear Joe,
I wish that we could at least have said goodbye to each other before you left New York. I think I understand why you ran away. I am sure that you must blame me for what happened. If I had not sent you to Hermann Hoffman, then your brother would not have been on that ship. I don't know what would have become of him in that case. And neither do you. But I accept and understand that you might hold me responsible. I suppose that I might have run away, too. I know that you still love me. It's an article of faith for me that you do and that you always will. And it breaks my heart to think that we might never see or touch each other ever again. But what is even more painful to me is the thought--the certainty I have--that right now you are wishing that you and I had never met. If that is true, and I know it is, then I wish the same thing. Because knowing that you could feel that way about me makes all that we had seem like nothing at all. It was all wasted time. That is something I will never accept, even if it's true.
I don't know what is going to happen to you, to me, to the country or the world. And I don't expect you to answer this letter, because I can feel the door to you slamming in my face and I know that it's you slamming it shut. But I love you, Joe, with or without your consent. So that is how I plan to write to you--with or without your consent. If you don't want to hear from me, just throw away this and all the letters that follow it. For all I know these words themselves are lying at the bottom of the sea.

Rosa

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Betty Pointing, 64
Clerk

He asked me why I smile when I say “I love you.” I don’t know why I smile--I just do. He said I shouldn’t smile when I say it because then he don't think I’m serious. I’ve been with him forty-six years and I told him that should stand for something, but he still said I shouldn’t smile when I say I love him. So I got myself all tighted up and looked him right in his face and said “I love you,” but no sooner that the “I” was halfway out, I was smiling again. I just can’t help smiling when I say it. I truly can’t. I smiled the first time I ever seen that man standing in the back of the church trying to ease out before the service was over. Even when he ain’t around sometimes I find myself thinking on him and smiling. So now I’m standing in front of the mirror feeling like a fool saying “I love you” to myself for practices so when he comes home from the barbershop I can say it to him. And I know, same as I know my name, that when I open my mouth to say it to his face, I’m going to be smiling. Shoot, he know it, too.

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Dear Reader,
There are times when there is nothing left to say because everyone else took your words. That is all I have to say.