LETTERS FROM ACROSS THE MONSOON

LETTERS FROM ACROSS THE MONSOON

Letter from private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan

June 3, 1967-Camp Holloway, Pleiku

Emily,

I’m writing this from a plywood desk that wobbles every time the wind hits the tent. The monsoon started early this year. Rain here doesn’t fall-it attacks. The ground is a soup of red clay and my boots haven’t been dry since I stepped off the plane.

I don’t want to worry you. Our unit mostly runs patrols around the perimeter. The older guys say this area is “quiet,” though they say it the way someone might say a sleeping dog is quiet-like it would wake up teeth-first.

I keep thinking about the way you waved at the bus station, like you were trying to hold the moment in place. I carry that with me. It helps.

Tell your father I’m still terrible at playing cards, but I’m learning.

Yours,

Daniel

Letter from Emily Rowan to Private Daniel Mercer

June 18, 1967-Queens, New York

Daniel

Your letter arrived with a smudge of red dirt on the corner. I stared at it for a long time. It made everything feel too real and not real enough.

Your mother stopped by yesterday with a peach pie. She’s trying to be brave, but she keeps folding and unfolding her hands like she’s counting something she can’t quite name.

I’m working extra shifts at the library. The kids keep asking for books about faraway places. I shelve them carefully, thinking of you in one of those faraway places, trying to stay dry.

Please keep writing, even if it’s only a sentence. Even if it’s only your name.

Come home safe.

Emily.

Letter from Private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan

August 2, 1967-Near Kontum

Emily

We moved north. I can’t say much, but the terrain is different-denser, darker. The jungle hums at night like it’s alive in ways I don’t understand.

Yesterday, we walked through a village that had been abandoned in a hurry. Bowls still on the table. A child’s sandal in the doorway. I don’t know what happened there, but the silence felt heavier than anything I’ve carried.

I think about the library sometimes. The smell of old paper. The way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you’re concentrating. I replay those things like a film reel.

I’m okay. Tired but okay.

Yours,

Daniel

Letter from Emily Rowan to Private Daniel Mercer

August 21, 1967

Daniel

Your letter took nearly three weeks to arrive. I read it slowly, afraid it would vanish if I blink.

There are protest in the city now-loud ones. People shouting in the streets, holding signs. Some of the boys from the neighborhood have already come in uniforms, but not walking. I don’t know how to feel about any of it. I just know I want you home.

Your mother asked if you still hum when you’re nervous. I told her you probably do. She smiled in that sad way she has now.

Write when you can. I’ll be here.

Emily

Letter from Private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan

October 14, 1967

Emily,

I’m writing this from a cot. Before you panic-I’m alright. A piece of shrapnel caught my shoulder during a night patrol. It’s shallow. The medic said I’ll be back with my unit soon.

The truth is, I’m more shaken than hurt. It happened fast-one moment we were walking, the next the world was white and soundless. I remember thinking of you, of the bus station, of the way your hand felt in mine.

They let me keep the fragment. It’s small, almost pretty in a cruel way. I don’t know why I’m telling you that.

I’m tired Em. More than I’ve ever been.

But I’m still here.

Daniel

Letter from Emily Rowan to Private Daniel Mercer

November 1, 1967-Queens

Daniel

Your mother and I cried when we read your letter. Not because we were hurt-though that terrified us-but because you were still able to write.

I wish I could take your tiredness away and carry it for a while. I wish I could sit beside your cot and read aloud until you fell asleep.

The protests are louder now. Some of the boys who returned are joining them. Others stay home and stared at their walls. I don’t what’s right. I only know I want you safe.

Please come home when they let you. I don’t care if you limp or if your shoulder aches when it rains. Just come home.

Emily

Letter from Private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan

January 9, 1968-Camp Holloway

Emily,

I’m back with my unit. The shoulder aches, but it works. That’s enough.

Something is building here. The officers are tense. The radio crackles more than usual. I can’t explain it, but the air feels like it’s holding its breath.

If anything happens-if letters stop for a while-don’t assume the worst. Mail gets lost. Roads wash out. Sometimes we’re moving too fast to write.

I keep your last letter folded in my breast pocket. The paper is soft from being handled too much.

Yours,

Daniel

Letter from Emily Rowan to Private Daniel Mercer

February 20, 1968-Queens

Daniel,

Your last letter was dated more than a month ago. The news is full of reports about something called the Tet Offensive. Your mother hasn’t slept in days.

I’m trying not to imagine things. I’m trying to believe you’re just somewhere without paper or stamps or time.

I’ve started writing you a letter every morning even if I can’t send them yet. It helps to pretend you’ll read them someday.

Please be alive.

Emily

Letter from private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan

March 5, 1968-Da Nang

Emily,

I’m alive.

I don’t know how to describe the last weeks. The world turned inside out. Cities that were supposed to be safe weren’t. Night’s that were supposed to be quiet weren’t. We moved constantly, slept rarely, and lost more than I can write on paper.

I’m not the same. I don’t know who I am right now. But I know I want to come home. I want to sit in the library with you and listen to the radiator hiss. I want to walk down a street where nothing explodes.

I don’t know when they’ll send me back. But I’m holding on to the idea of you.

Yours,

Daniel

Letter from Emily Rowan to Private Daniel Mercer

March 22, 1968-Queens

Daniel,

Come home. Whatever pieces of yourself you bring back, I’ll take them. I don’t need the boy who left. I just need the man who survived.

Your mother cried when I read your letter aloud. Then she made more tea, because that’s what she does when she doesn’t know how to fix something.

The city feels different now. People look at each other with a kind of quiet fear, like we’re all waiting for news we don’t want.

But I’m waiting for you.

Emily

Letter from Private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan

April 12, 1968-Camp Pendleton Processing Center, California

Emily,

I’m stateside.

I don’t know how to write that without it sounding like someone else’s sentence. We landed just before dawn. The sky was pale and empty in a way I’d forgotten skies could be. No smoke. No tracer-fire. Just a horizon.

They put us through a series of briefings-medical, psychological, logistical. The kind where men in clean uniforms talk at you while your mind drifts off somewhere you can’t name. I kept thinking I should feel something big. Relief, maybe. Joy. But mostly… suspended. Like I’m hovering between two versions of myself.

They gave us new clothes. Mine don’t fit right. The fabric is too soft. The colors too bright. I didn’t realize how used I’d become to everything being the same shade of mud.

I’ll be here for a few days, maybe a week. They say it depends on paperwork, on transport, on a dozen things no one explains. I’m trying to be patient, but my hands keep shaking. I think my body hasn’t caught up to the fact it’s safe.

I keep your letter in a bundle in my duffel. I read them last night in the barracks while the others slept. Your handwriting felt like a place I recognize.

I’m coming home, Emily. I don’t know what shape I’ll be when I get there, but I’m coming.

Yours,

Daniel

Letter from Emily Rowan to Private Daniel Mercer

April 18,1968-Queens

Daniel,

I read your letter three times before I let myself believe it. Stateside. The word feels unreal, like something borrowed from someone else’s life. I kept saying under my breath as I walked through the apartment, as if repetition might make it settle into the world around me.

Your mother came over the moment I called her. She didn’t even take her coat off before she started crying-not loud. Just soft, relieved tears that soaked into the wool at her collar. Then she made tea, of course. She said she needed to keep her hands busy or she’d fall apart completely.

I’ve preparing the apartment, though I’m not sure what “preparing” means anymore. I washed the curtains. I rearranged the bookshelves twice. I bought new sheets because the old ones suddenly felt too thin, too worn, too full of the years you weren’t here. None of it feels like enough. I don’t know what you’ll need when you walk through the door. I don’t know what parts of your life will feel familiar and what parts will feel like they belong to someone else.

You said you feel suspended. I think I understand. These last months have been a kind of holding a breath for me too-waiting without knowing what shape the waiting would take. Now that you’re closer, the air feels different. Lighter, but also sharper like it might cut if I move too quickly.

Take whatever time you need at the processing center. Don’t rush on my account. I want you home. Yes, but I want you whole in whatever way you can be. If your hands shake, let them. If the world feels too bright, we’ll dim it together.

Write when you can. Or don’t. Just come home when you’re ready.

Yours,

Emily

Letter from Private Daniel Mercer to Emily Rowan

April 27, 1968-En Route to New York (somewhere over the Midwest)

Emily

They handed out paper on the plane-thin sheets that curl at the edges if you breathe on them. I wasn’t going to write. I thought I’d stare out the window until we landed. But the sky is too big, and the quiet is too loud, and my hands needed something to do.

We took off before sunrise. The engines roared, and for a moment my whole body braced for something that wasn’t coming. Then the ground fell away and I realized I was leaving it-all of it-behind me. Or trying to.

The stewardess smiled when she handed me a cup of coffee. A real smile, not the tight wary ones we learned to read over there. I didn’t know what to do with it. I nodded too quickly and spilled half the cup on my tray. She pretended not to notice.

The men around me are quiet. Some are sleeping with their mouths open, exhaustion finally catching up-others stare straight ahead, as if the world might shift again, if they look away. I keep thinking I should feel something like joy. Or relief. But mostly I feel… untethered. Like I’m stepping from one life into another without knowing where the ground is.

I don’t know what I’ll say when I see you. I’ve rehearsed a dozen versions in my head, but none of them feel right. Maybe I’ll just stand there for a moment, trying to believe you’re real and not another thing I imagined to get through the nights.

We land in a few hours. I don’t know if this letter will reach you before I do. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s enough that I’m writing it at all.

I’m coming home, Emily. I’m trying to let that truth settle somewhere inside me.

Yours,

Daniel

Letter from Emily Rowan to Private Daniel Mercer

April 27, 1968, Queens

Daniel,

By the time you read this, you’ll already be closer than any letter can reach. Maybe you’ll be in the airport, or on a bus, or already walking to whatever comes next. Maybe you won’t read this at all. But I needed to write it anyway-not for you exactly, but for the version of me who had been waiting for so long she forgot what it feel likes to breathe normally.

Your mother came by this morning. She brought a small vase of lilacs from her yard-the first of the season. She said they always bloom early, stubborn things that refuse to wait for the weather to make up its mind. She set them on the kitchen table and said, “He’ll be home before they fade.” I don’t know if she meant as a promise or a prayer.

I keep walking from room to room touching things as if they might tell me how to prepare. The curtains. The books. The chipped mug you used to drink tea from even though you always said it tasted like boiled dust. Everything feels both too familiar and not familiar enough, like the apartment is holding its breath with me.

Just come home. We’ll figure out the rest together, slowly, gently in whatever shape it takes.

I’ll be at the station. I don’t know what I’ll say-maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe I’ll just stand there and let the sight of you undo all the knots I’ve tied myself too.

Hurry if you can. Take your time if you can’t.

Yours,

Emily

Arrival-Daniel

The bus hisses as it brakes, a long exhale that feels too human. For a moment, no one moves. The men around me shift in their seats, shoulders brushing, boots scuffling, but no one stands. It’s as if we’re all waiting for someone to tell us what comes next, the way they did over there.

Then the driver opens the door, and warm New York air rushes in-thick, city-scented, alive. My heart stumbles. I grip the seat in front of me until my knuckles ache.

I step down into the pavement.

The world is too bright, too loud. A taxi honks somewhere down the street. A woman laughs. A baby cries. All of it feels like it’s happening behind glass.

And then I see her.

Emily stands near the far end of the platform, hands clasped in front of her, as if she’s holding something fragile between them. Her hair is pulled back, but a few strands have escaped, catching the light. She looks exactly like I remembered and nothing like I remembered-real in a way memory never managed.

She doesn’t run to me. I’m grateful for that. I don’t think could survive being touched too quickly.

I walk toward her, each step careful, deliberate as if the ground might shift. She watches me the whole way, her eyes wide and shining, but she doesn’t move.

When I’m close enough to see the tiny tremor in her breath, she whispers, “Hi.”

It’s such a small world. It breaks something open in me.

“Hi,” I manage.

We stood there, inched apart, suspended in a moment that feels both endless and impossibly fragile. Then she reaches out-slowly, giving me time to flinch, or step back-and touches the sleeve of my jacket. Just the fabric. Just enough to prove I’m real.

I don’t flinch.

Her hand slides down until her fingers find mine. They’re warm. Steady. Familiar.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for months.

I’m home. I think.

Or at least I’m somewhere I can begin to be.