I was surprised to find a hand-addressed letter with a South Carolina return address and postmark in the collection of bills and junk mail that normally made up our daily mail delivery. The return address was "Mrs. John Wickes, RFD 2 Box 170, Walhalla, NC 29691." At first I had no idea why we were getting a letter from Mrs. John Wickes, then it hit me. Wickes was my mother's maiden name.
To the best of my knowledge, Mother hadn't had any contact with her family since she left South Carolina to come live with my father. I'd never met any of my relatives, either. What little I knew about my maternal grandparents came from stories my mother had told me. Of course she'd left her family home at age fourteen and had been gone for nearly a quarter of a century, so there was probably a lot about the family she and I both didn't know.
"Who's John Wickes?" I asked when I walked back into the house.
"I have a brother named John," she replied. "Why?"
"His wife wrote you a letter," I said, and handed it to her. I can't quite describe the look that appeared on mother's face. It was a combination of a little bit of longing, a small amount of puzzlement, and even a little bit of fear. Holding the letter in her hand, she walked over to the kitchen table, sat down, and continued to stare at it.
"Is John one of your older brothers?" I asked. I walked over and sat down at the table, too.
Mother nodded. "He's about ten years older'n me, I think," she said. There was a wistful tone in her voice and she continued to stare at the letter.
"What do you think his wife wrote to you about?" I asked.
Mother kept staring at the letter and shrugged. "Dunno," she murmured.
"You could find out by opening the letter," I pointed out.
Mother looked at me. "What if it's bad news?"
"Maybe it is," I said. "On the other hand, maybe it's good news. You won't know if you don't open it."
Mother went back to looking at the letter she still held in her hand.
"You want me to open it?" I suggested. "If it's bad news, I won't tell you."
Mother looked at me again. A brief flash of anger showed in her eyes, then it disappeared and she laughed. "Yeah, sure," she giggled. "Sure you won't tell me."
"I won't, if you don't ask," I said.
"Like I'm not going to ask," she chuckled.
"So...are you going to open it?"
She looked back at the letter. "I...I guess." She moved to do just that and when she did, I could see her hands trembling. I wasn't surprised. I think I probably would have been shaking, too, if I were about to have the first contact with a member of my family that I'd had in nearly twenty-five years. She got the envelope open, took out the letter inside, and studied it. From the look on her face, I was pretty sure it wasn't bad news. When she finished reading, Mother looked at me. "It's from my brother John's wife. They're having a family reunion and they want us to come."
"Us?" I said. "Him, too?"
Mother shrugged. "I guess."
"When is it?" I asked.
"Saturday, September 27th," Mother replied.
"You want to go?" I asked. Part of me wanted to. It would be a chance to learn about a part of my heritage I had very little knowledge of.
Mother shrugged. "Don't matter what I want. You know he ain't gonna want to go."
"It isn't up to him," I said. "If you want to go, we'll go. If he doesn't want to come along - and I hope he doesn't - he can stay here. Do you want to go?"
She looked at the letter, then at me, then back at the letter. After a while, she took a deep breath, looked back up at me, nodded, and said, "I think maybe I'd like to."
"OK, then we'll go," I said. "I'll put in for vacation for a few days. How big a town is Walhalla?"
"I don't rightly know," Mother said. "We lived quite a ways outside of town, back up in the hills. Didn't get to town much. And it's probably changed some since I was there, too."
"I can probably find us a place to stay on the Internet," I said. "What's a bigger town near Walhalla?"
Mother looked thoughtful for a few minutes. "I think Greenville's not too far away," she said. "Folks always used to go there to get stuff they couldn't get in Walhalla."
I laid my hand on Mother's. "You sure you want to go?" I asked.
Mother looked back at me and nodded. "Yeah, I think I do." She took a deep breath. "It's kinda scary, though. I mean, I ain't seen any of them folks for nearly twenty-five years."
"Do you know if your parents are still alive?" I asked.
A sad look formed on Mother's face and she shook her head.