Letters to Joe

By Carole Taylor

A naive adolescent girl from Ohio desperately seeks comfort and safety by moving to her father's home in Illinois after her parents' acrimonious divorce. Reflecting many of the norms and cultural conventions of small-town Midwestern life in the very early 1960s, Peggy struggles to make sense of her middle-class family's disintegration but finds neither lasting comfort nor safety in either environment.

Peggy longs to understand her complex new world, even as she struggles to come to terms with the loss of her old life, a happy and stable life gone mad and turned upside down.

Peace—forever a process, never a destination--will take many years for Peggy to achieve; but what will meanwhile both help and frustrate her is the young man whom she loves both because of and in spite of himself. Until his premature death at age 75 years, Joe will unknowingly serve as her guide along the journey of a lifetime as he helps, even beyond the scope of this book, to shape her ultimate destiny.

Writing in the epistolary genre and under a pseudonym, the author takes the reader deep inside the psyche and perspectives of Peggy and multiple other persons with whom she associates, many of whom can recognize early-on how tenuous her hopes and dreams of a mutual future with Joe will likely be.

This is a story of the effects of disintegrating families and reflects the sting of abuse, betrayal, and the perils of alcoholic behaviors. Beyond all that, this is the story of a teenage girl who will at times frustrate you, amaze you, exceed your expectations--and ultimately break your heart.

“Letters to Joe” is a jewel that illuminates and reflects adolescent sincerity and tenderness even in the face of teenage humiliation and rejection. A “must-read” for parents, youth, and anyone who has ever pledged to love another human being unflinchingly from first glance to beyond the grave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984577283

Carole Taylor

Carole Taylor is an illustrator, artist, and calligrapher. She holds degrees in zoology and art from Brigham Young University and resides in Utah.

Book preview

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~William Shakespeare

CHAPTER ONE

Dear Peggy,

T hanks for calling me Sunday to let me know your dad was in town and that you went back to Illinois to spend a few days with him and his new family. I just hope you’ll be home in time for the school dance after the basketball game Friday night. I’m sure you’ll insist they get you back here because you know how much this means to me! I also hope and pray that Johnny will ask me to dance this week-cross your fingers.

You already know how important school attendance is around here, so you can’t play hooky if you ever want to get into National Honor Society-haha! Fat chance of that anyhow, right? See you soon, I hope!

Love from your BFF (bestest friend forever)

Betsy

***

Dear Betsy,

Thanks for your nice letter, but I have decided to transfer schools and will finish my sophomore year out here. It’s a long story, and one I don’t talk about very much. But no matter how hard I try, and believe me, I’ve tried hard, I can’t get along with my mother. Ever since the divorce, she finds fault with everything I say and do. I haven’t been able to sleep right for several months, and my grades have all dropped down into the sewer. Not a chance of my ever getting nominated into the National Honor Society at this rate, that’s for sure.

Sorry about Friday night, but I promise to keep in touch with you weekly. And of course, I hope Johnny asks you to dance. Such excitement!

Love,

Peggy

***

Dear Peggy,

I was shocked when I got your letter. I’ve heard all about how mean your mom can be to you at times, but I had no idea you’ve really been all that upset. You sure don’t let it show at school, especially when you’re acting like a fool or being the class clown!

I just want to ask you one question—actually two. One, when are you coming home? And two, are you ever really planning to come back? You really hurt my feelings with this news, and no, Johnny did not ask me to dance last Friday.

Waiting for some honest answers, so write back soon.

Betsy

***

Dearest Peggy,

I learned from your older sister that things around your home have been very difficult for you since your parents got divorced and your dad recently remarried. They say people tend to take out their frustrations on the most sensitive person around them, so it’s not surprising to me that your mother has been picking on you. But what everyone is puzzled about is that you apparently did not confide any of this, even to your closest friends. I also understand that some people are very private, and while you seem pretty outgoing, I suspect you may also keep a lot inside and hidden.

Mainly, I want you to know that there are many people here who care about you. And no matter what, Peggy, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Just come back home when you’re ready, and if you want to! I’m here for you, as are many others who admire and love you.

With filial and agape love from your friend forever,

Tim

***

Dear Peggy,

Well, my dear, you know how fast news travels in a small town like this. Last night Larry came home from work and told me you’re now living with your father and his new family because you’d been having a lot of problems with your mother. I wish you had come to us first and told us because we want to help you.

Your decision to go out there is understandable to us and to a lot of other people who have known your family during the past several years.

We want you to know that you can come and live with us if you’d like to return to Ohio. We have an extra room off my sewing room, which would be just perfect for a fifteen-year-old girl. It’s small, but we could put a twin bed, a little desk, and a bulletin board in there for you. You would always be welcome to make your home with us, Peggy.

All our love,

Mary Ann and Larry

P.S. The three kids want me to tell you that they also miss you very much. We still tell people you were the best babysitter we’ve ever had. We all love you and hope you are doing OK out there, making some new friends and doing better again in your school work.

CHAPTER TWO

Dear Margaret,

I regret to inform you that your grade in my fifth-period class has fallen so low that you are now in jeopardy of failing Latin II for the year. I realize we have known you here for only a few weeks, but if your poor grades persist, then please be advised that you will likely be demoted from College Preparatory classes and placed in our General Curriculum next fall. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Not everyone is cut out for college, and perhaps you would do better in some general business classes.

Should that occur, however, you would have a very difficult time getting admitted to a good academic college after high school graduation. Please give this some serious consideration, as we do see potential in you, Peggy, judging from your past record, which includes some rather impressive academic and testing scores. However, if you don’t turn things around soon, your future at this progressive school might well be imperiled.

If you will start completing and turning in your homework, that would be a great help. We know it’s hard to be a new student in such a large school, especially arriving during the last three months of the year.

If there is any other way I can help you, please let me know. If you think you might benefit from a peer tutor, then I would recommend that you work with Joe. He is the best help I have to offer you. You know Joe—he’s the student who sits two seats behind you in class and is, in fact, the best Latin student in the school.

Sincerely,

Mr. Clark

***

Dear Peggy,

I am so heartbroken that you continue to violate our friendship and abandon me when you already know how much hanging around with you and being your BFF once meant to me. If you should ever come back, you might as well know now that you can never expect me to be the same loyal friend I’ve been to you these past several years.

People ask me about you all the time, and I don’t have much information to tell them because, for some reason, your letters to me are always so short and cold. Going around feeling all sad and sorry for Peggy isn’t going to help you, and it certainly doesn’t impress me much. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but just disappearing with no reasonable explanation in the middle of our sophomore year has really made me lose a lot of respect for you. You might as well hear it from me that there are also a lot of theories going around as to why you really left, but I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Joyce’s dad is pretty mean to her too, by the way, but she never tried to play on my sympathy.

Betsy

***

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Miller,

How nice of you to offer me a room in your home, but I know it would only make my mother even angrier than she already is now. I also don’t want to impose on you and your family. But I thank you very much for your kind and generous offer, and please tell the kids I miss all of them too. They were so much fun to babysit, and I will always cherish the memories of teaching your baby girl to walk and being one of the few people little Larry would ever listen to. Such a fun and lovely family!

Sincerely yours,

Peggy

***

Dear Tim,

Thank you for your friendship and for trying to understand my predicament. To be completely honest with you, I