Write a brief passage of backstory related to a character, including a movement in time.

Not 100% sure about the description on this one, but whateverface.


Grandmother had never been a hard woman. They say that when the men went off to war, the women had to take control and got used to being in charge. When the men came back, they found their wives had changed. They ruled the household with an iron fist. Grandmother had never been like that. But she had lived through the war and was strong in her own way. She didn't talk about it now, though. She had loved, as many had, a soldier who didn't come back. None but her husband knew that her first child, her son, wasn't his.
Forty years later, she received a letter that changed everything. Her husband had died by then. His lungs had been bad for a while, but despite the forewarning it was no easier to lose a man the second time. She looked at the letter with curiosity. She knew the hands of everyone who was accustomed to writing to her, or at least to sending her Christmas cards. Not only was the writing unfamiliar, but the stamp was foreign and the postmark was from Munich, Germany. Seeing this, the envelope dropped from her hands.