Chapter 3: Things the Wind Heard
The sun was lower by the time they left the lake, their clothes still a little damp, skin marked by light and quiet and something deeper they didn't yet have a name for. The road back felt slower. Or maybe it was just the weightlessness that followed healing—a kind of stillness after crying, the air clearer, the breath easier.
Anya leaned her head against the window, watching the light flicker through the canopy of trees like it had something to say.
Oriana drove with one hand, the other resting between them, open, palm up. Anya laced her fingers into it without looking. They didn't speak. There was no need to. The silence now was not a holding of breath but an exhale shared.
When they arrived at the small house Anya's grandmother had left behind, the air smelled of plumeria and old teak. It hadn't changed much. The porch still creaked in the same places. The front door still stuck a little when you pushed it. The wind still moved through the wind chimes like it remembered whose voice it used to imitate.
They stepped inside and slipped off their shoes. The floor was cool beneath their feet.
"I haven't been here since before she passed," Anya said quietly.
Oriana looked around the house—simple, worn, loved. A table with uneven legs. Curtains that once were white but had aged into cream. Shelves full of old cookbooks and chipped ceramic bowls. A watercolor of lotus fields hung crooked above the kitchen doorway.
"It feels like her," Oriana said.
Anya smiled faintly. "She used to keep peppermint candies in that blue jar."
She crossed the room, opened the jar, and blinked down.
There were still two inside.
"Maybe the house waited for you too," Oriana said.
Anya sat at the small dining table, rubbing one of the candies between her palms. "She always said houses remembered love. Not people. Just love."
"She was right."
Oriana wandered toward a tall cabinet near the back wall, where faded lace covered the glass doors. Inside were old linens, books stacked on their sides, and a few locked drawers.
"What's in here?" she asked, tugging gently.
"I don't know. That one's always been stuck."
Oriana pulled again, and with a soft groan, the drawer gave way. Inside was a box wrapped in cloth, tied with twine. She lifted it carefully, carried it over, and placed it on the table between them.
Anya stared at it.
"I don't remember that."
Oriana looked to her. "Do you want to open it?"
Anya nodded, hands slow and cautious as she undid the twine. The cloth unwrapped like something sacred. Inside was a wooden letter box, faded but smooth, with a small carved symbol on the lid—the Thai word for listen.
She opened it.
Inside: papers, envelopes, small folded notes.
Letters.
All addressed in her grandmother's delicate, wavering script.
Many were labeled with years.
Then… one with no date at all.
It was addressed only as:
"To my Anya. When the wind finally brings you back."
Anya stared.
Her heart thudded.
She opened it with trembling fingers.
Oriana reached for her hand beneath the table.
Anya began to read aloud.
My dearest Anya,
If you're reading this, the wind has done its work. I never knew how to say things out loud, so I left them here instead—where the silence could hold them for you.
You were always full of questions, even as a child. Why the moon changed shape. Why flowers leaned toward sunlight. Why people left even when they loved you.
I never had answers. Only stories.
There was a woman once, long before you were born, who laughed like birdsong and sang while she cooked. I loved her the way the trees love the monsoon—with no defense.
But we were not allowed.
The world was smaller then. And crueler. So I let her go. I became who I was told to be. I never saw her again, but I dreamed of her every spring.
You, Anya… you carry the courage I didn't. I saw it even when you were small. In the way you loved stray animals. In the way you forgave even those who didn't ask for it.
I think, maybe, you would have loved her too. Maybe she would've loved your laugh. Maybe she would've painted you.
And maybe, just maybe…
You will find the kind of love I lost.
If you have, then let me say this:
Don't hide it.
Not for the world. Not for fear. Not even for family.
Because even if you love in silence, the wind will hear. And it will tell someone someday.
I hear it now, even from the other side.
I am proud of you.
Love,
Your Grandmother, always.
When Anya finished, her voice cracked.
She folded the letter slowly, placed it back in the box, and just sat there, her eyes glassy, her fingers trembling.
Oriana didn't speak. She stood, came around the table, and knelt beside her.
Anya turned to her, and without a word, wrapped her arms around Oriana's neck and held her.
"She knew," Anya whispered into her shoulder. "Even back then."
"Yes," Oriana murmured. "She knew your heart. Even before you did."
"She loved a woman. And no one ever knew."
"She loved you too. Enough to leave this for you."
They held each other for a long time, the breeze curling through the cracks of the old house like it was listening. Like it was delivering the last words of a woman who had loved quietly her whole life.
That evening, as twilight poured over the old wooden walls, Anya and Oriana lit a candle and placed the letter beside it. An offering. A promise. A small flame for the woman who had once dared to love in silence.
"I think," Anya said, "we should put this place back together. Not change it. Just… open it again. Like a retreat. Somewhere women like her—like us—can come and feel seen."
Oriana looked at her. "You mean it?"
Anya nodded. "No more hiding. Not from love. Not from legacy."
Oriana smiled. "Then let's start tomorrow."
They lay down on the old futon mattress near the open window, covered in an extra blanket they found in the cabinet. The stars came out slow. The wind whispered.
And when Anya turned toward Oriana, brushing her lips against her shoulder, she whispered, "If the wind ever writes to me, I hope it tells me I loved you well."
Oriana touched her cheek. "It will. It already has."