“I took the one letter he had for us. It was from the Switchblade Gas & Electric Company. I didn't know I had admirers there too, but I wasn't that surprised. I threw it in the trash with the IRS's love letters and closed the door without reply.”

“Really. Is there anything nice to be said about other people's vacations? I balled up the letter and threw it in the trash.”

“When I opened the box, I had to remove myself from whose handwriting it was that I was reading and whose story I was hearing. I had to, or I never would have made it past the first letter. If I stopped to think about my Grandpa writing to my Grandma, knowing how much he loved her and how many years he spent without her after her death, I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it through just one letter without an onslaught of tears. And it was Grandpa, a voice I knew so well. One that I miss terribly.”

“He answered with a smile. The darkest and most malignant I had ever seen, too strong to be voluntary. The door, I thought. The door. But I didn't dare turn to it, in case it wasn't there.”

“And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt too, who must not be longer neglected.”

“Dear Sixpence,I saved them all, you know. Every letter you ever sent, even those to which I never replied. I’m sorry for so many things, my love: that I leftyou; that I never came home; that it took me so long to realize that you were my home and that, with you by my side, none of the restmattered.But in the darkest hours, on the coldest nights, when I felt I’d lost everything, I still had your letters. And through them, in some small way,I still had you.I loved you then, my darling Penelope, more than I could imagine—just as I love you now, more than you can know.MichaelHell House, February 1831”