HOME STAYS
YOU
HOME STAYS, walls cannot move and don't shift to create new rooms that you have not once stepped foot in. Penelope recognised that as she walked into her childhood home for the first time in five years. The living room still sat, the decorations looked untouched, even though Ethel constantly polished and picked up around the room- they stayed the same... Penelope however did not.
Her curls no more, short hair that barely touched her shoulders became her new normal once Peter and herself touched down in Washington, newly wed. Her smile did not reach her eyes anymore, and her soft touch felt numb. No matter what changed with Penelope, she knew she could rely on her home, on her family.
"Well it's about time you came back," Penelope's head turned to look into the dining hall, there sat in the window, Martha. Freshly turned seventeen, her face seemed older and more wise. "I had began to think you had forgotten about me,"
"You would never let me," Penelope brought her younger sister into a tight embrace. "Where is mother?"
"She's in town," Martha said, "Never mind her, what happened to you?" Martha gripped onto the short ends of Penelope's hair.
"I cut it,"
"Well I can see that, I'm not blind," She scoffed, "But why?"
"I needed something new," Penelope softly smiled.
"Yes, well that is very new," Martha returned to the window, picking up her sewing she had set down before. "How is Peter?"
"He's is fine," Penelope shrugged, "I'm going upstairs,"
Martha thought nothing of Penelope's abrupt response as her sister made her way up the stairs. Penelope's room was empty, the door left open. The room bare except for a box tucked away in the corner.
A large sigh filled then left Penelope's lungs. Her knees buckled as she fell hopelessly to the floor, her suitcase in hand. Penelope pulled off her hat and put it down next to her, running her fingers through her hair. Her throat felt tight.
Unclipping the locks on her suitcase, she opened up the bag and pulled out the two dresses she had brought home. One being what Thomas Johnson had gotten made for Penelope all those years ago, when things were simple, when things were sweet. Underneath the expensive fabric of the gown laid a pile of envelopes, red ribbon tied around the bundle- keeping them all together.
Tears filled Penelope's eyes as she scanned the envelope's, Jo's handwriting imbedded into the paper, ink stained. Penelope should have stayed, she was Jo's home, and she hers. Home stays, Penelope did not.
Sworn to never break contact, the pair wrote each other letters from across the country. Telling tails of their everyday lives now that they were apart, secret confessions of love written inside, signed and sealed. Penelope did not think of herself as someone who would commit adultery, her heart simply belonged to someone she could never have. This was not adultery, this was a cry for freedom.
Two years in, the letters stopped. Penelope wrote a letter to Jo she did not think would be her last, but time proves a different fate- for Jo never wrote back.
Tears were now streaming down Penelope's face, letters clutched to her chest as if they were all she had left of Jo March, because in reality- they were.
Note.
I updated. You're welcome.