Chapter 4: Letters the Rain Didn't Wash Away
The morning came slowly, slipping through the wooden shutters like it had to ask permission. Light touched the corner of the futon where Anya still lay, eyes half-closed, Oriana's fingers tracing quiet patterns across her wrist. Neither of them spoke. The silence was content, full—not the kind that needed breaking, but the kind that held a story too sacred to rush.
Outside, the birds had begun their murmured songs. Somewhere down the road, a rooster cried too late, lazy and unbothered. The village was awake, but not yet moving.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Oriana whispered.
Anya opened her eyes. "Yes. I think… I've never been more sure of anything."
She sat up, the blanket pooling around her waist, hair wild, cheeks still kissed by sleep. She looked older than Oriana remembered. Not aged—rooted. Like something had finally grown still inside her.
They began with the front room. Oriana swept out the dead leaves and dust while Anya polished the faded wooden walls. The shelves, once gray with neglect, began to remember their old color. The smell of lemongrass oil and lavender soap filled the space as they cleaned, shoulders brushing, breath catching in rhythm.
They worked until midday, stopping only when Anya found an old tin box tucked behind a loose panel in the floor. Inside were keys, receipts from 1976, and a folded photograph of a younger version of her grandmother standing beside another woman—soft-eyed, short-haired, wearing a white blouse with embroidered edges.
"She looks like…" Oriana started, then paused.
"Like someone waiting," Anya finished. "Waiting to be remembered."
That afternoon, they visited the village's oldest shop for cleaning supplies and woven mats. It was owned by a woman named Mae Sri—short, sharp-eyed, with a laugh like the snap of dried bamboo.
"You're her granddaughter?" Mae Sri said, squinting at Anya. "You have her chin."
Anya bowed respectfully. "Yes. We came to look after the house."
"About time," the woman muttered. "She kept that house like it was hiding something holy."
Oriana and Anya exchanged a glance.
Mae Sri shuffled behind the counter, returning with a dust-covered envelope. "She left this with me. Said to give it to the girl with quiet eyes when the wind returned her."
Anya stared at her. "How did you know it was me?"
"Your eyes," she said simply. "Same silence. Same storm."
Anya took the envelope with trembling fingers.
The paper was old, delicate. Inside was another letter, this one addressed:
"To the one I loved in silence."
Oriana put a hand on Anya's back as she opened it.
My love,
I don't know if you'll ever read this. But if by some thread of kindness the universe weaves it into your hands, I want you to know—
I remembered everything.
I remembered the way you used to bring me tea before the sun rose. How your laugh cracked through my sorrow like light in a cave. I remembered the way we touched only in shadows, because the world told us not to shine in daylight.
I remembered how you smelled like earth after rain. How your name tasted like hope.
I never stopped loving you.
I just learned how to do it from afar.
There were so many things I wish I had said. So many mornings I wanted to turn back and say "stay." But I didn't. I couldn't.
I chose the silence the world demanded of me. But if there is another life after this, I will choose your voice instead.
Until then, I send my love into the wind, hoping it finds your hands.
Always yours, in the quiet,
Sopa.
Anya folded the letter carefully.
"She loved her," Oriana whispered.
"She did."
"Do you think she ever got a reply?"
Anya turned to Mae Sri. "Did she?"
The older woman hesitated.
Then she reached under the counter again and pulled out a second envelope—older, even thinner than the first. "I don't know why I kept this. But she gave it to me years ago and said, 'Don't read it. Just save it. In case the girl ever comes back.'"
She handed it to Anya.
There was no name.
Just a single word:
"Forgiven."
Anya clutched it to her chest.
"I want to restore the house," she said quietly. "Turn it into a space for women like them. Like us. A place where no one has to whisper their heart."
Mae Sri smiled with something that almost broke. "Then your grandmother's waiting wasn't in vain."
Back at the house, the sky had begun to thicken with late afternoon clouds. Rain whispered against the windows. Oriana lit candles in every room. The soft flicker of flame made the walls seem warmer, as if memory had a heartbeat.
They laid the two letters side by side beneath the window, like offerings.
Then Oriana pulled out her sketchbook.
"I want to draw them," she said. "Not their faces. Just… what they left behind."
She sketched two teacups, side by side but never touching. A chair with worn arms. A wind chime tangled in string. A letter left unopened on a doorstep.
And then—two shadows leaning toward each other beneath a flowering tree.
Anya watched her.
"Do you ever think love is something that outlives us?" she asked.
Oriana looked up. "I think… it's the only thing that does."
That night, they slept near the window again, the rain steady, the air thick with old scent and softened grief. Anya curled into Oriana's side, her hand resting on her stomach, fingers tracing idle shapes.
"I think I want to write her back," Anya whispered.
"Your grandmother?"
Anya nodded. "And the other woman too. I know they'll never read it. But I want to answer them. So they don't feel forgotten."
Oriana kissed her forehead. "Then we'll write together."
The candles flickered once more, and the letters lay quiet in their places.
But the wind outside—the wind heard.
And it carried everything forward.