Love Letters to the Dead (36 page)
Read Love Letters to the Dead Online
Authors: Ava Dellaira
I smiled at them and asked, “Do you want to play Poohsticks?”
They laughed. Dad said, “I haven’t thought about that game in years.”
“May and I still used to play together,” I said, “after you taught us here. We’ll do one for her, too.”
So we crossed the tracks onto the forest side to look for sticks. Mom picked one with a pretty knot on the wood. Dad’s was like a walking stick. I got myself one with the bark still on, and I got you a smooth one, straight and strong. We went back on the bridge and leaned over the edge, and “One, two, three, drop,” Dad counted. And as we ran to the other side to see, yours won! I told them it’s because you were hurrying toward the sea.
I imagined your stick, washing in the waves for hundreds of years, turning to driftwood, smooth and hard like stone. I imagined a little girl finding it on a beach so many years later. Saving it on her shelf, where she put the things that made her feel like the world was magical.
May, I decided that I might want to be a poet when I grow up. Which is pretty much now, because I guess this is what growing up is like. So, I wrote my first poem this week. I wrote it for you. Before we left the bridge, I read it out loud to you.
A Love Letter for My Sister
A ghost cannot open an envelope. Still I address
this to you—I am saving this world for you, see.
River water runs. Fields fill with golden.
Apples bitten.
A ghost cannot open
an envelope. A ghost cannot run.
The road travels its forever distance.
Two girls pause by a bridge, to notice.
The fall leaves don’t fall hard.
The spring lasts forever, after a storm.
I am opening this envelope for you, see.
An open blue flower. A paper bag holds a candle.
I am letting the world open me.
A leaf falls. A lead smudge
leads to a girl in a red dress.
I am reading the letters you meant for me to see.
I hope that you will open the envelopes,
so I am opening the world inside of me.
I am sending my letters to you.
The river goes to the ocean.
The ocean sounds infinite.
We are big enough to hear it.
Both of us.
Love always,
Your sister, Laurel
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I think about the fact that
Love Letters to the Dead
is now a book that exists not only in my head or heart or on my computer screen, but in the world, gratitude feels like an understatement. I offer my most full-hearted
thank you!
to everyone who made it so.
To Stephen Chbosky, my dear friend and mentor, who told me I should write a novel to begin with, then gave it his boundless support: thank you for letting me be a part of telling your stories and for helping me learn to tell mine.
To Liz Maccie, who was the first person to read the very first draft of this book: thank you for seeing what it could become and for your unconditional love and encouragement that gave me faith to carry it through. Your friendship is a true guiding light.
To Hannah Davey, who shared my first days of high school and who has been my forever best friend ever since (and who is happily also a genius reader): thank you for making memories with me that become stories, for sharing stories with me that become memories, and for growing up with me for so long.
Doug Hall, my love, I am so grateful for you every day. Thank you for not only helping me to become a better writer, but for helping me to become who I needed to be to finish writing this story.
I have been astoundingly lucky to work with the brilliant Joy Peskin, who is a dream of an editor and who has treated Laurel and her family and friends with the utmost attention and generosity. Joy, thank you for seeing what I’d kept hidden and helping me to bring it onto the page and into the light.
To my wonderful agent, Richard Florest, thank you for believing in this story from the beginning and fighting for it with such vigilance and compassion at every step along the way. A book couldn’t have a better friend.
To the people at FSG: I am wowed by you all and so grateful that you have embraced this story and lent it your hearts and amazing minds. Thank you especially to Katie Fee, Molly Brouillette, Caitlin Sweeny, Holly Hunnicutt, and Andrew Arnold for all that you have done to shepherd
Love Letters to the Dead
into the world.
To my friends and early readers, Anat Benzvi, Kai Beverly-Whittemore, Michael Bortman, Matt Bradly, Sean Bradly, Willa Dorn, Lauren Gould, Lianne Halfon, Will Slocomb, Katie Tabb, and Sarah Weiss, thank you for your support, inspiration, and insight. This book wouldn’t be what it is without you. Thank you also to all of my wonderful teachers at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the University of Chicago, and the Albuquerque Academy, who changed my life and made this book possible for me. Thank you to Carol Hekman. And thank you to my stepmom, Jamie Wells, for her support and kindness.
To Kurt Cobain, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Bishop, Amelia Earhart, River Phoenix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Heath Ledger, Allan Lane, E. E. Cummings, and John Keats, thank you for your beautiful lives and work, which continue to inspire me and so many others.
To my father, Tom, thank you for your endless supply of love and encouragement, honesty, guidance, and wisdom. For a lifetime of love and our lives together. I am so proud to be your daughter.
And most of all, to my sister, Laura, my fellow fairy and partner in all things magical: I am so grateful that I get to grow up with you and for all that you’ve taught me along the way. I love you more than the whole universe.
RESOURCES
If you or someone you know needs help, please consider contacting one of these organizations:
Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network
1-800-656-HOPE
Suicide Prevention Lifeline
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
1-800-273-TALK
Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration
1-800-662-HELP
National Child Abuse Hotline
1-800-4-A-CHILD
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Copyright © 2014 by Ava Dellaira
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2014
eBook edition, July 2014
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Dellaira, Ava.
Love letters to the dead / Ava Dellaira. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister’s mysterious death, her mother’s departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.
ISBN 978-0-374-34667-6 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-374-34668-3 (e-book)
[1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Death—Fiction. 3. Grief—Fiction. 4. Letters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D3847Lo 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013029594
eISBN 9780374346683