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.”Jan folded the letter and slipped the photograph back inside it.She would give them to Beth when her daughter returned from India.Jan would read Thomas’s message out loud and explain how she had felt at the time.She would tell Beth everything she could remember about that awful year of losing a true love and welcoming a new life and becoming someone different.She reached for the second letter.Inside this one, Thomas had enclosed a tea leaf.No doubt mailing a foreign country’s vegetation to the United States had been highly illegal.It was crisp and fragile now and had turned brown.But Jan recalled how she had held the green leaf up to the sunlight and marveled at the network of veins that transported life and flavor and nourishment.Her own body was functioning in much the same way, nurturing the baby who by that time had taken to performing somersaults in the middle of the night.Dear Jan,Did you get my letter? Why didn’t you write back? You can’t be that mad.Think of all the time we spent together.Think of how much we love each other.I still love you, Jan.I think about you every day, and I wish you would come and see me.I’ve added to my bank account in Tyler, and my dad will help you get whatever you need to buy a ticket.I’m working in the tea factory now.It’s amazing.I enjoy the machinery more than I thought I would—me being an ag major and all.I have learned how to make some repairs, because things are always breaking down.Replacement parts are hard to get over here.It’s not like in Tyler.My mom says she hasn’t seen you or talked to you.How are you? Please write to me.I miss you.I love you.Love,ThomasShe had loved him, too.But summer was passing, and she had stopped vomiting every morning.She still yelled at her family, but now that the baby was showing, they treated her better.Her mother cooked whatever Jan wanted.Her father kept asking if she was all right, did she need to sit down, was she feeling any funny twinges, could he help her with anything? Her brother stared at her every time he walked by the den where she was watching TV with her long bare legs stretched out on the ottoman and her stomach pooching up like a small hill under her T-shirt.That summer seemed to last forever.And then the third letter came.The cardinal flew past the screened porch as Jan now lifted the blue envelope and drew out the letter.The brilliant red bird had called and called, and finally his mate answered.They sang out, first one and then the other, fluttering closer and closer until they spotted each other.Dear Jan,Why don’t you ever write to me? I know you got my last two letters.My parents get every letter I send them.I would call you, but it’s too expensive and the time is backward.I would rather spend the money on your plane ticket.If you came over here, we could talk about everything.We could work things out.I know we could.I got a promotion.I’m making more money now, and they’re talking about letting me move into one of the houses they provide for midlevel employees.The houses are small but nice.We could get married while you’re here.There’s a missionary in Nuwara Eliya, and I already talked to him about it.He said he would do the ceremony.I was planning to marry you all along anyway, but I wanted to wait until I was settled into my job.Jan, don’t you love me anymore? I know you’re upset about what I did, but I also know you can’t turn off true feelings just like that.I will never stop loving you as long as I live.Please write to me.Love,ThomasJan had gotten out paper and a pen a hundred times.She had started countless letters.But she always threw them away.How could she live in a place where time was backward? How could she marry Thomas without her father to walk her down the aisle and her mother to sit crying on the front pew of their church in Tyler? What would she ever do with herself in a small, midlevel employee’s house on a tea plantation in Sri Lanka? No matter how much she loved Thomas—and she still loved him to the very core of her being—she could never change that much.More important, she couldn’t bring a baby into the world and expect the child to live that kind of nomadic, insecure existence.Jan had to smile now as she put the letter away, and she leaned back in her chair to gaze through the screen at the lake.How hard she had worked to protect her baby from the life Thomas Wood offered.And look what had happened! Beth grew up to be a globe-trotting nomad herself!Not only did Thomas’s daughter love to travel, but even at this moment, she was headed straight toward a tea plantation in some foreign country where people spoke strange languages and ate strange foods and had strange customs.Beth had no qualms.No hesitation.Her only worry had been her mother’s reaction.“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,When first we practice to deceive!”Jan shook her head at the truth in Sir Walter Scott’s verse as she opened the fourth and final letter.She had worked so hard to keep her big secret.She had spun her web and laid out each thread in perfect order.But what a tangled mess she had created.“Jan,” the black ink stated matter-of-factly.My mother told me that you got married two weeks ago.She said he’s a history teacher at the college.How could you do that? Didn’t you love me? Was I nothing to you? I thought you really cared about me, but I can see now I was wrong
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