Part 4 – “The Letter and the Sister”
The next morning, Lena found the letter on the kitchen table.
It sat alone, under the morning light, beside a cup that had gone cold in the night.
The envelope was aged and brittle, its corners curled. The name on the front was barely legible now, ink faded into time. Still sealed.
She turned to find her father at the sink, rinsing his hands with slow precision. Max stood behind him, tail gently wagging, as though he knew something important had shifted.
“You left this out,” she said, holding the envelope up.
Robert dried his hands. “I couldn’t keep hiding it.”
She examined the letter. “From the war?”
He nodded once. “Silvano’s.”
Lena sat down and placed it gently in front of her. “You never mailed it?”
“I never found her.”
“What was her name?”
Robert stared out the window for a long time. “I don’t know anymore.”
Silence settled in the room like dust.
“You want me to try?” she asked. “To find her?”
He blinked, looked at her, and his voice cracked. “Would you?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
That afternoon, Lena began her search. She started with the back of the photo—the same black-and-white one from the windowsill. Someone, maybe her mother, had written names there in pencil:
Pvt. Robert Mendoza, Cpl. Joe Lasky, Pfc. Thomas Hale, Pfc. Silvano Reyes
She wrote the names down and started combing through old army records online, cross-referencing with lists of Bataan survivors and casualties.
Max lay beneath the table while she clicked and scrolled. Robert sat on the porch with a blanket across his legs, watching the wind move through the orchard.
He didn’t say much. But every so often, he reached into his pocket and touched the tags.
April 1942 – Day Six of the March
Silvano died in the transport truck.
They had crammed them in like cattle—stacked, breathless, bleeding. Some passed out from the heat. Others from the smell.
Robert sat in the corner, Silvano’s head on his lap. When the truck lurched, Silvano’s body slipped sideways.
He never moved again.
Robert tried to hold onto the letter, but his fingers were numb, shaking from fever and shock.
When they reached Capas, the guards screamed again. Another roll call. Another shove. Another blow for anyone too slow to respond.
Robert couldn’t tell if it was blood or rain soaking his shirt.
Only that it didn’t matter anymore.
Back in the present, Lena found something.
“Dad,” she said, voice tinged with disbelief. “I think I found her.”
He turned, slowly. “Who?”
“Silvano’s sister. There’s a record—a Maria Reyes. She filed a missing person request in 1946 through the Red Cross. Listed him as her younger brother. Says he died on the march.”
Robert sat down hard. His knees gave a little, and he winced, clutching the edge of the table.
Lena knelt beside him.
“You okay?”
He nodded slowly. “Just… old bones, that’s all.”
But in his eyes, something else stirred. Not pain—at least, not the physical kind.
“Is she… still alive?” he asked.
“She passed,” Lena said gently. “In 1997. But she had a daughter.”
Robert’s breath caught.
“She lives in Chicago. Teaches literature. Her name’s Elena.”
He blinked. “Elena… like my Miriam wanted to name you.”
Lena smiled. “You want me to reach out?”
He paused. “Do you think she’d want the letter?”
Lena looked at him. “It’s not about what she wants. It’s about what you need to give.”
Robert closed his eyes.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
That night, Robert sat with the letter again.
He didn’t open it.
But he did write a new one—his own.
One page. Longhand. Careful strokes.
He told Elena about Silvano. About the march. About the promise. And the shame of waiting too long.
Then he folded them together.
Max lay at his feet.
“I’m not sure it’s forgiveness I’m asking for,” he whispered to the dog. “Maybe just… remembrance.”
Max thumped his tail once.
The wind that night was soft. But it carried a scent—of wet soil, aging wood, and old ghosts.
Somewhere deep in Robert’s spine, pain flared again—brief but sharp. He rose slowly, hand on the chair, muttering as he stood.
Three times in one week. It was getting worse.
But that night, he didn’t reach for the pills.
He just stared at the stars and whispered a name he hadn’t spoken in eighty years.
“Silvano.”