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Thankfully, I was deterh the horror of the dustland

Fourth drawer in, ht of Sarah’s name and inet it out of the drawer Clutching it tightly in hand, I took it over to a table that was set up in the back of the room and clicked on the library lamp that sat on it To my surprise the bulb in the lamp still worked

I didn’t completely understand otten under my skin in a way that surprised the heck out of me I felt like I knew her Like I understood her in so for her

I flipped open her records The first thing I saas a picture of a frail-looking woman There were hints of her once-upon-a-time beauty, but it appeared as if life had battered most of the prettiness out of her

And as I read on, all my hopes and wishes for her died there on the spot

Inside the folder was a copy of her medical records and her date of death

May 8, 1976

The day she wrote her last letter to George

That hy he’d never gotten them

I read through the nosed with non-Hodgkin’s ly to George she’d been undergoing radiation therapy The treatressive, and she died of heart failure

I closed her records feeling iiveness so quickly She wanted it before she died, and he never got the chance to give it to her

Wiping tears fro I could unsee the I could unsee the letters There were enough unhappy endings in this life I didn’t need to know about a stranger’s

However, as I worked that day,back to the e ht still be alive I knew from Sarah’s records that she enty-six years old when she died If she and George were the sae, then he would be only sixty-six years old

How hard could it be to find a state senator’s son who lived in Hartwell, a city so sled it? Turned out it had a pretty boardwalk and gorgeous beach so it was actually quite a popular vacation spot

When I had another h it pulled up articles on the state senator, and before I knew it I found a photo of George Beckwith It was taken in 1982 with his father at a political rally at Princeton University The college of George’s dreao to despite Sarah’s efforts

I stared at his handso couple I wanted desperately to see a photograph of the and happy

“God,” Iup on this? “You’re going crazy”

“Why are you going crazy?”

I jumped, startled, as Fatima strode into ratefully but scowled at her “Don’t creep up on me like that”

“Why? So I don’t catch you talking to yourself like a crazy person?”

I sighed “I think I ht be a crazy person”

Fatima frowned and sipped at her own coffee “And why is that?”

“I did so” I pulled h it for the envelopes “That book you confiscated Pride and PrejudiceI found so, including my discovery of what had happened to the inmate who’d written the hidden letters

“Why didn’t you just say that hat you were looking for in the records roo?”

At her waspish tone I tried to appease her “I didn’t want you to think I’d gone nuts”

“I don’t think you’ve gone nuts” Fatima looked over the letters and I sawshit” She glanced up froet to you more than they probably would anyone else”

For aif she— Nah She couldn’t

“You can kid yourself all you want that you’re happy, but you and I both know there should be ” Fatiave me some harsh truths “You have no family, no boyfriend, and your oldest friend lives over a thousandin this prison, but I have to ask myself what the hell made you want to work here when you clearly had so many other opportunities open to you Can you honestly say that at thirty-three years old this is where you always hoped your life would lead you?”

For hours I sat inin my ears The woman had always kno to be blunt, but up until now I’d never felt the force of her words so much as I did today

I didn’t want to believe that she was right or that the reason I felt so h her letters was because I, too, felt as if life had slipped away from me somehow

That there was no hope of a happy ending for me

And ned it that way

I picked up h to get through the horror of the dustland