“If I could do it all over again, I would and I’ll tell you why.”
The wind gusted suddenly, blowing his hair back as he turned to the tree, running his wrinkled hand over the scarred bark. “I wouldn’t have gone.” his finger outlined the letters LW and AR carved into the bark. “It was all those patriotic feelings, the glory of… war. Of returning as a hero.” he put his hand over the aged lettering. “I just wish I hadn’t been so naïve. I should have seen it coming.”
The old man touched his forehead to the bark. “I would have stayed, I would have protected you. We could have kept our promises. I would have done so many things differently…”
A girl in a navy blue dress, spinning under the shade of the tree. He watched her laugh, smiling at her happy demeanor. She beckoned him to dance with her, waving at him, calling his name. A teen in a pressed navy uniform walked toward her, blushing, and they began to dance. The faint music from a radio floated up through some open window in a faraway house, a warbled voice singing to a slow and steady piano tune, mixing with a jazz band. The couple smiled, within their own little world under the shade of their tree, lost in time.
Another breeze swept through the leaves, scattering the couple into the air. Another image appeared, the boy looking a bit taller and a bit thinner, walking with flowers, kneeling on the green spring grass, placing the small bouquet at the base of a tombstone. He closed his eyes and lightly touched the tombstone with his forehead, silently crying. A faint outline of a girl in a navy blue dress gently touched his shoulder.
They both vanished into the blue sky.
The leaves fell from the tree, snow flurries danced around the tombstone, icicles melted and flowers bloomed. The teen grew to an adult, appearing with flowers, lightly touching the wintry tomb stone before the winds took him away from her. The image melted with the coming spring.
The leaves circled in a gentle breeze, mixed with aged music and the smell of decaying mourning flowers. He clutched the tree, searching for something to hold on to, the world was spinning rapidly.
“Sir, are you ok?”
That voice, it couldn’t be real. He opened his eyes and a girl who couldn’t be more than seventeen stood before him, a look of concern on her face. “Sir?”
“Who are you?” he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Andrea Roberts,”
This couldn’t be real; he peered closer at the girl. She backed away. “Are you alright?”
“You look so much like someone I know. Knew,” he corrected himself. “Why are you here?”
“I found a letter in my grandmother’s house,” she took a softened, timeworn sheet of paper out of her pocket. “It mentioned this tree and someone named Louis Whittanger.”
“That’s me.”
She handed him the worn out letter, “this is for you. It’s from her. She never got to send it.”
He took it and carefully unfolded it. Her scrawled handwriting filled whole pages, giving the full story of how they had met, from the first day of first grade, to the day they carved their initials into the tree to when Louis left for the war. It almost seemed like pages torn from a diary.
“What happened to her after this letter?” He asked, refolding the pages.
She looked down, “the factory she was working in burned down. She helped get everyone out and was trapped when the building collapsed. They called her a hero.”
He felt his legs give way and he sunk to the grass, holding his head in his hands. “Who was your grandfather?”
“Well according to this letter, it’s you.”
The breeze stirred the grass and the girl in the navy dress appeared, her hand on Andrea’s shoulder, smiling sweetly before another breeze carried her away.