Chrolette Diary Entry

I was getting very excited for my husband, Henry, to return home after a few years, which felt like decades. He had left only two years after our marriage when I was 22 and he was 23. He decided to go into the army, and left fairly quickly because of the war we were in the middle of. He joined in the year of 1914, towards November. In the two years after our marriage, I had a little girl in November of 1913. We named her Charolette, the same name that was given to her father’s grandmother.
“Charolette Dear, please come to the kitchen.”
She was never old enough to meet her father and talk to him, but she was very fond of him when he would hold her. Charolette’s health fluctuated with the harsh Georgia winter, but ended up surviving.
“I wanted
The life that Charolette and I were living was probably so much better than his conditions were. We had everything we needed, a small home, one large bed, food for her and I, and a fireplace to keep us warm. Even though I was living well, I felt incomplete. I felt so alone, without Henry there. I tried my hardest to focus on now, but my mind was always going somewhere else. Days, weeks, had passed with the news that the war had been won. My Henry had still not returned home. A few more weeks, still nothing, still taking care of my sweet Charolette, and---the door rumbled. We were eating our lunch, at about five after twelve. I removed to napkin from my lap and walked to the door. I looked through the small hole in the wood, which revealed the portion of stones leading up to our doorway, and a tall man with dark hair--Henry. I had never swung open the door faster. He came in and sat at the table with us, and joined our meal. He spoke to Charolette, who was barely eating anything due to her asking so many questions. He always knew the answer to them, and they seemed to get along well together. “What were you gone for?” “Well, I was busy protecting you and