She’d taken a quick break to refill her lemonade. Who knew reading was such dusty work? She’d removed each journal and placed it carefully on the TV table she’d set up for the purpose. She wanted to know exactly what she was dealing with in the trunk. The journals now sat in chronological order, spanning forty years, from 1863 to 1903. Then there were all the letters to go through, which was more difficult as not all the writing was as easy to read as Joe’s. She wished she’d spent more time training her eyes to decipher handwriting, and would have if she’d ever thought she’d need such knowledge. She put her glass on the end table and turned her attention to the trunk, its lid sitting open and inviting. She peered inside and lifted a handful of letters, neatly grouped by a length of ribbon. A tug and the lace slipped off. She shuffled through the stack, sorting them by date as she went. In her hands resided living history, the words and emotions of those who had gone before.
