Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham (best short novels of all time txt) 📗

I looked up, a questionable cabbage in one hand. “Yes, Mr. Palermo?”

“Mrs. Collins is asking for a quart of fresh tomatoes.” His bushy white moustache twitched. “None of the ones up here seem to suit her.”

“Be right there.”

I grabbed a quart of the best-looking tomatoes in the room and headed to the front.

Mrs. Collins’s face widened with a smile as soon as I entered. She was a tall, blond woman, and today she wore a neat green suit. A matching cloche was pulled stylishly low over one eye. Mrs. Collins was one of the few people I knew who seemed relatively untouched by poverty.

“Molly, dear. So nice to see you. You’re looking well.”

“Thank you,” I said politely. I handed the tomatoes to Mr. Palermo, and he started wrapping them up.

“I was talking to Ian about you last night,” Mrs. Collins went on. “You know, he’s over at the Star. He’s hoping to become a junior reporter soon.”

“I’m happy to hear he’s doing well, especially in times like these.”

“Here you go,” Mr. Palermo said, holding up the package.

She made no move to take it from him. “I’m sure he would love to see you sometime,” she pressed. “Maybe the two of you could have dinner.”

I remembered Ian Collins from school. He was three years older than I was and a nice enough boy, handsome in a relaxed sort of way, but I didn’t really know him. My mother made a point of saying that was because I had never taken Mrs. Collins up on her suggestion. Besides, she said, what was there to know? He had a good job, and his family was well-off. He was Irish and Protestant. But the truth of the matter was that Ian had never asked me out. I didn’t know what I’d say if he did.

“Thank you for thinking of me, Mrs. Collins, but I’m afraid I’m too busy these days.”

“Of course,” she said through a tight smile. She handed over the cash and gathered her purchases. “Always nice to see you, Molly. Please give my best to your mother.”

Once she was out the door, Mr. Palermo returned to his paperwork behind the register. “You can’t put her off forever,” he muttered.

“Oh yes, I can,” I assured him, heading to the back room.

I was busy. If I did have spare time, I wouldn’t be wasting it on Ian Collins. Or on any boy, to be fair. I’d gone on a date or two, but I was usually so bored by the end of the night I could hardly wait to close the door behind me. Hannah thought I was a riot, turning them down. She loved going out on dates. I knew that most girls my age wanted to settle down and become wives and mothers, but I just wasn’t ready for that, as much as it frustrated my mother. It seemed all I’d ever done was take care of my siblings. I wanted to do something else. Something for me.

I hadn’t meant to tell Max about my writing, though I supposed that was all right. Growing up, he’d never made fun of me, never made me feel like a little girl like Richie sometimes did, but it had been four years since I had seen him and in that time, he’d gotten a degree. He’d grown up. His face was darker, shaded by the black outline of his beard, and he was leaner, probably from so much studying. But he still had the same smile, and he still hadn’t laughed at me. He’d been encouraging about the idea of my writing, and last night he’d even brought over the article by Rhea Clyman, the journalist he’d mentioned before.

Rhea’s story tore my heart apart. She’d written about the Holodomor, the ongoing, brutal genocide of Ukrainians by the Soviets. Her article described the deserted villages, the starving people, and the children who she wrote were down on all fours like animals, eating grass because there was nothing else for them.

When I’d finished reading, it was a moment before I could speak. “Imagine, going all the way there by herself,” I said to Max. “What a dangerous mission. Especially for a woman.”

“This was actually her second time there,” he said. “The Soviets expelled her last September.”

“For what?”

“She went to investigate reports of political prisoners and exiles being used as slave labour in camps. In her story she called one of the prison towns a ‘town of living corpses.’ The Soviets were furious.”

I couldn’t imagine having that kind of courage, to travel all that way then reveal a story like that to the world, putting herself at risk. Then again, that’s exactly what I wanted to do with my writing. To make a difference somehow—though I didn’t see myself heading to the Soviet Union anytime soon.

“Molly?” Mr. Palermo called again.

“Yes?” I stooped through the doorway, wiping my hands on my apron.

Mrs. Rossi stood at the counter, her boney fingers curled around her handbag, her eyes downcast and sunken beneath her black scarf. Behind her waited her two youngest sons, their clothes hanging off their little frames. Mr. Rossi had been my school principal, but he’d died last year of a heart attack, leaving behind his wife and six children. She took in mending jobs, like my mother did, so she could be with her kids, but it was never enough. Matteo, her oldest, worked two jobs.

“Hello, Mrs. Rossi,” I said. “Matteo played well the other night. It was a good game.”

“Grazie, Molly,” she replied softly.

Mr. Palermo fixed me with a steady look, and I nodded. “I’ll be back in jiffy.”

I loaded up an empty box with as much salvageable produce as I could find, then I returned to the front and placed the box in Mrs. Rossi’s arms.

“Grazie. Dio ti benedica,” she said, quietly leaving.

Mr. Palermo and I didn’t say anything more, and I went back to work. There would be two or three more visits like hers today. We did what we