Page 57 of Nineteen Letters

“This came for you earlier,” she says with a smile, picking up a letter and passing it to me.

Leaning forward, I kiss her cheek. Surprise lights her eyes. I feel for her even more after my lunch with Stephen today. She’s been through some hard times. First losing her parents, then her husband … in a way, she probably feels like she’s lost her only child as well.

“Thank you,” I say, holding up the letter, but my gratitude for her runs far deeper than just that.

Letter six…

Dearest Jemma,

The fourth of July 2004. It was school holidays, and this would mark our last extended stay at your grandparents’ house. By the time the next school holidays rolled around later that year, you would be working in your first part-time job. But we didn’t know that then.

July meant it was winter, and the first few days of our holiday at the farm brought rain. We spent it mostly playing board games and helping Ma bake sweets. She made us her official taste testers, and she had nocomplaints from me. You could say I’ve always had a sweet tooth.

The rain finally eased by day three, so we got up early and spent an hour out in the garden catching worms. When we were done, we grabbed our fishing rods—Ma and Pa had given them to us the previous Christmas—and headed to the river. I always loved that you weren’t afraid to pick up the worms and bait your own hook like most girls were. Actually, there wasn’t much that frightened you.

The ground was muddy that day from all the rain, so Pa advised us not to take Tilly-Girl with us. You were disappointed because you’d been eager to ride her, so we took the long way down to the river, via her paddock, so you could see her.

Pa would leave his white wooden rowboat down by the bank for us during our stay. It was far too cold to swim, so we got plenty of use out of it during the winter months. You would help me overturn it and push it into the river. I would roll up my pants before stepping into the near-freezing water, and piggyback you from the shore to the boat so you didn’t get wet.

We would row to our usual spot and drop the anchor. Some days we sat there for hours and didn’t catch a thing, but other times we did really well. If we brought homesome trout, Pa would clean up our catch, and Ma would cook them up in a scrumptious lemon butter sauce for our dinner.

This particular day proved to be one of the slower ones. We’d been down there for a few hours and hadn’t even got a bite.

“Holy crap,” you blurted out suddenly, jumping to your feet. “Did you see that?”

“Easy there,” I replied, trying to settle the boat as it rocked violently from side to side.

“Pass me the net!”

“Have you caught something?”

“No, but I think I just saw the Loch Ness Monster.”

I laughed when you squealed with excitement. “You’re crazy. There’s no such thing.”

“I’m not lying, Braxton. I saw it.”

“You might have seen something, but it wasn’t that.”

“I saw it, goddamn you,” you snapped, flicking your foot out, connecting it with my shin. Your tone made me chuckle, which only seemed to annoy you more. “Oh my god, we’re going to be famous. We’ll be on the news and everything.”

I hadn’t doubted that you saw something, but I knew it wasn’t what you thought.

“There it is again!” you squealed. This time you didn’t bother asking me for the net, you turned in haste and grabbed it for yourself. How you possibly thought you could catch a giant creature of the deep in such a small net was beyond me, but I let you go. You were as stubborn as hell when you set your mind to something, and you wouldn’t have listened to me anyway.

I stuck my head over the side of the boat and saw that your so-called monster was a platypus skimming along the surface of the water.

You lunged forward in an attempt to scoop it into your net. It wasn’t your wisest move. It not only sent the boat toppling over, but it also threw us both into the freezing water below.

I broke the surface first, and my head darted from side to side as I searched for you.

“Jemma!” I called out at the top of my voice. “Jemma, where are you?”

I was about to dive back under to search for you when you emerged. You were gasping for air and your lips had already turned a light shade of blue.

I swam the few strokes to reach you, sliding my arm around your waist. “The rods!” you cried as I manoeuvred you towards the bank.

“I’ll go back for them.” My first priority was you. Your entire body was shivering when we finally made it to dry land. I’m sure I was as well, but I can’t remember because I was too worried about you. “You need to get up to the house and out of these wet clothes. I’ll come back for the rods.”