American Queen

Anyway, if you’re still in London, I hope you’re having a good time.

Sincerely yours,

Greer Galloway

Dear Ash,

I wasn’t going to bother you any more since it’s been almost three weeks since I sent my first email (and I was certain that I was annoying you) but when I was watching the news about the Krakow bombing last night, Grandpa Leo called. We talked about what the bombing meant for Europe and NATO and America, and then he mentioned that you’d been reassigned back to the Carpathian region the week after the party. I feel so terrible for emailing you such trivial stuff when you were back on duty, and I just wanted you to know that I had no idea. I’ll make sure to light a prayer candle in church for you and pray a rosary for you every night.

Be safe please.

Sincerely yours,

Greer Galloway

Dear Ash,

It’s a real war now. Officially. The Carpathian problem has been around for so long that I’m not sure even Grandpa Leo ever thought it would really come to a head like this. But the Krakow bombing last week—over nine hundred dead—there’s no way war wouldn’t be declared. At least that’s what Grandfather said.

Did you know that my parents were killed by Carpathian separatists? Almost ten years ago now. They blew up a train bridge and killed almost a hundred people, my parents included. All that death, my childhood completely torn apart with God only knows how many other children’s, and for what? A small chunk of land squashed between Ukraine and Poland and Slovakia? It makes no sense to me.

Except, in a weird way, it does. I have every reason to hate the Carpathians, but I can’t. I can’t actually transpose my own pain and grief over the images of the war I’m seeing. Instead, I keep thinking of the Carpathian children who might lose their own parents. I keep thinking about how peaceful and quiet I feel when I remember my childhood in Oregon, when I remember what home feels like. There’s no doubt that a handful of the militant separatists have done terrible things, and I understand why there is war now. But part of me wishes that we could simply sit down and grant them what they want—their home. Sovereignty is a complicated thing, and creating a new nation is a fraught prospect in a region already as carved up as Eastern Europe, but what if there could be a way forward without war? I’ve been raised in politics and I’m not naive enough to believe that we can erase killing and violence, but even if we could reduce it just a little…wouldn’t that still be worth trying?

I’ve been praying for you every night like I said I would. I hope wherever you are that you can feel that. Somehow.

Sincerely yours,

Greer

Dear Ash,

You’re famous now. Imagine my surprise yesterday at waking up to your face all over the news. My horror when I found out what you lived through, my relief that you were unharmed. It’s unthinkable to me that you were able to fight your way out of a building surrounded by separatists, all while carrying that wounded soldier. I can’t fathom what kind of courage it took for you to stay with your friend when the rest of your squad escaped. What kind of skill it took for you to fight off your attackers and eventually save yourself and him. But after reading and watching all the profile pieces on you, I shouldn’t have been surprised. You have a history of being a hero, don’t you? And I’m not trying to tease you or make you uncomfortable. I’ve been around every sitting president, vice president and first lady since I was a baby, and I have seen how tiring it can be to have people fixate on your accomplishments. But I can’t write this letter without telling you that I’m in awe of how many times you’ve risked your life for your fellow soldiers. ‘No greater love than this’ is what Jesus says about men like you, and I’m honored to say that I’ve met you in person, and that you’re even kinder and more humble than all the profile pieces and journalists say.

That being said, to me you are still Ash. Our acquaintance lasted only an hour, but the things that I remember about you—the cut on your jaw, the way your hands felt as they worked the glass splinter out of my finger—are more than your battles. You are a hero to me, but you are a man too. Maybe even more man than hero.

Yours,

Greer

Dear Ash,

It’s been six months since we met, and part of me is embarrassed to look at this chain of emails—a chain with only me in it. I tell myself it’s because you’re at war, because you’ve been saving lives—last week, that high school building where so many civilians were taking shelter!—but I guess I’m also not foolish enough to believe that a twenty-six-year-old war hero wants unsolicited emails from a boarding school student. So I should stop bothering you, I know I should, but it feels as if I have taken you up as a sort of hobby. Reading about you, thinking about what I should write to you. The girls at school are obsessed with the fact that Abilene and I were at the same party as you this summer, and even though it’s one of the only times anyone has been interested in actually talking to me, I hold what happened between us as my own private secret. I don’t want anyone else to know what it felt like to be in your arms. I don’t want anyone else to know about the little groan you made when we kissed for the first time. I’m greedy for you, or at least for those memories of you. I’m not stupid—I know that you must have a girlfriend or that you’ve had them—I know I’m not the only person who’s heard that little groan or felt the heat of your hands on their back. But I like to pretend. I like to feel possessive of these small parts of you, the parts that don’t belong to the public imagination, and maybe that’s the real reason I can’t stop writing.