The humid Georgia sun beat down on the back of Anna Jones’ neck. It was an afternoon in May of 1967, the kind of cloudless, windless day where you felt that if you reached high enough, you could reach right through the sky. Summer promised to be unmercifully hot, but Anna didn’t mind.
“Marry me,” Charlie drawled in his thick Southern accent.
She paused, glancing through the branches of the tree they sprawled under at the tranquil sky.
“No.” She smiled.
“What do you mean no?”
“I’m only eighteen, you know. What will people think?”
“Let them think.” He awkwardly held a modest gold ring out to her, and ran a hand through his unruly coffee-colored hair, a habit he’d had since childhood that showed only when he was horribly nervous. Suddenly she was reminded nostalgically of the little boy he had been when they met. She grinned again and slipped the ring on her finger.
They strolled, hand-in-hand, from their spot under the oak tree to Charlie’s house, ready to tell his family the news. His mother met them at the door, a strained expression on her face.
“Ma, we got somethin’ we-“
“Charlie.” She cut him off, her voice cracking. She held up an unopened letter. Charlie eyed her suspiciously, and reached out to survey the official-looking envelope. It was addressed to a Charles Alexander Burns, with a return address from an army induction center a few towns away. It didn’t even need to be opened.
“A draft letter?” his mother said in an uncharacteristically high-pitched voice. “You’re too young, you can’t just…” Her words trailed off, as she turned and sobbed her way back into the house, wringing her hands in anxiety.
Charlie turned to face his new fiancée, who had stood, dismayed and silent, a step behind him. He felt his words leave him. There were a million things he wanted to say, but all he could find was,
“I’ll write.” The words came out sounding more like a question.
“Please,” she managed to reply.
Charlie Burns gathered his things into a suitcase and kissed his mother and his fiancée goodbye. Anna stared, still reticent, as the man she was supposed to marry drove away.
She tried, unsuccessfully, to carry on with the remains of her senior year, finishing school and bragging lovingly to her friends about the soldier she was so proud of. But agonizing thoughts plagued her mind. Summer came, and with it, the first letter. She hysterically tore open the envelope, barely noticing the paper cut.
June 7
How’s my Georgia peach?
Anna breathed a sigh of relief. He was alright. He went on to describe boot camp, the soldiers in his outfit, and life in Vietnam. Folding the generally cheerful letter into a small square, Anna placed it under her pillow and smiled inwardly.
As summer and the letters continued, she found herself suddenly absorbed in a war she had previously attempted to ignore. Hanging on every word of the nightly news, every article in the newspaper, every political debate; she realized she had somewhat of an obsession. Finally, another letter arrived.
July 20
Anna. Hope all of y’all are doin’ good.
She frowned, noting that his letters had slowly been losing the nonchalant tone of the first.
The fighting has gotten pretty bad, he continued. But I don’t want you to worry. You know I’ll be alright. Love Charlie.
After a worried sigh, she placed the note with the rest.
Anna was returning home from a friend’s house on a particularly scorching day when she noticed a Western Union Telegram officer standing on her porch, knocking on the door of her empty house. Her heart leapt in anticipation.
“Sorry!” she exclaimed, hurdling herself up the steps and practically yanking the stack of mail from his hands.
“Ma’am,” he said curtly. He turned sharply on his heels to continue his route. Anna flipped through the various bills and letters until she found the now-familiar envelope. This letter had changed drastically from the last. Charlie talked, not of the fighting or the hardships, or even the war at all. He described to his fiancée the life they would have when he returned: a big white wedding, a house in the country.
Anna wiped a tear and glanced through the rest of the undoubtedly insignificant mail. Lastly, a small but deceptively heavy telegram.
FAMILY OF CHARLES BURNS, it read across the front. Cautiously she broke the seal, as if the ominous little paper would bite. Clinking of metal sounded, and into Anna’s hand fell Charlie’s dog tags. The weight was suddenly crushing as she realized the purpose of the telegram.
The paper slipped through her fingers, and she watched as it fluttered to the ground as if in slow motion.
Anna recollected herself with a slow, deep breath. She walked slowly to her parents’ bedroom, retrieved her father’s gun from its usual spot in the closet, and smiled a crooked, melancholy grin as the bullet blasted through her brain. She crumpled to the ground face-first as blood pooled like a bright crimson flower around her, Charlie’s dog tags still clutched tightly in her lifeless fist.
