The Dratted Letter of '08

** This is an excerpt from a larger story**

***

27 July 2008

Dear Estelle,

Happy 11th birthday.

You’ll never believe what I found … Well, you probably could, I put the letter in the box that Winnie the Pooh is in. I had to purchase him for you.

The trip was the best ever! I wish that you could’ve come with us. You would’ve loved it. I also got a few pictures with Winnie the Pooh.

I’ll respond to your letters. I just got to the boarding house and just wanted to say happy birthday first. I’ll print the photos out, as they’re on my camera, when I’m allowed off-campus on the weekend and send them with the other mail. You’re going to love them. I look like a dork, but oh well.

Happy birthday, miss you.

Love,

Hunter

***

My elbows rested on my dusty blue and gold quartzite island bench top as I read over the letter for the second time. I reached for my half-finished mug of coffee, the lukewarm substance making me gag.

‘And into the microwave you go.’ With a one-eighty turn, I opened and closed the mug into the appliance before going back to the island. I watched as the sun rose over the ocean, and the sky started to turn into a shade of burnt orange through the large window.

The microwave dinged after thirty seconds. I tested the coffee with a sip. I knew that it could’ve been done with an extra thirty seconds, though it was at a passable temperature for a now shitty coffee that I wasn’t going to let go to waste.

As I sculled the rest of the milky caffeinated substance, I pulled out the photos from Big W’s photo printing service envelope, labelled “Disney Paris 2008”. There were several photos of thirteen-year-old Hunter hugging a Winnie the Pooh mascot. He looked uncomfortable, whether it was from the clothes that Vicki had clearly forced him into, or from hugging a giant live cartoon character, I’ll never know.

One of the photos had him scratching his neck where the collar of the polo shirt was touching. Violet glared at her big brother, probably forced to stand there until he stood still. I laughed. ‘Oh my God. The poor things.’

There was a knock at my front door. I put the images back in the envelope, leaving it on the soft blue-grey quartzite bench.

‘Coming!’ I called as I made my way down the hall.

‘Hurry up! I have news!’ Lola’s voice responded from the other side of the door.

‘Quick, I wanna know the goss!’ Violet’s comment made me chuckle as I flicked the key in the lock and opened the door.

‘What’s this news?’ I asked, letting my two best friends in.

‘Let’s sit down first,’ Lola said.

The two of them made themselves at home on my leather cream sofa while I locked the door behind us.

‘Proceed,’ I said, sitting down on the coffee table.

‘I got the job,’ Lola said. ‘And before you two start squealing, I have already spoken to Vicki. As it’s part-time training, I can still be your on-site nurse, Estelle. I’ve swapped with Courtney as I’m needed from Wednesday to Friday.’

My eyes widened. ‘Wow, I — congratulations, Lo.’ I reached over to hug her. ‘That’s incredible!’

She returned my hug. ‘Thank you.’

‘This is a huge step in the right direction for you, babe,’ Violet said, joining in on the hug.

‘Uh, Elle?’ Lola asked as we all pulled away. ‘What’s with the box marked “Hunter”?’

Violet followed Lola’s gaze to the tub next to the island bench.

‘Oh, nothing. Just the letters Hunter sent me over the years,’ I replied. The two of them looked at each other, and Violet shot up from the couch, Lola in tow. ‘Don’t guys.’

But it was too late. They were sifting through the photos I left on the bench. To think I had learnt my lesson when they a read a couple of old letters I left out on my desk when I was a kid. They had some boundaries, but anything out in the open? That was up for a stickybeak; Lola and Violet always took the “what’s mine is yours” a little too seriously.

‘Holy shit,’ Lola giggled as she started on the photos that I left on the bench. ‘Look at him with Winnie the Pooh.’

Violet took the images off her. ‘Oh my God! I remember this!’ She looked up towards me, her chocolate brown eyes boring into me. ‘Nanna made him wear that God awful cream polo with the shorts. Complained the whole time, except when it came to the photos —’ she looked back at the images ‘— now I know why.’

I looked down at the light oak timber flooring.

‘Violet’s never going to ask this,’ Lola said, looking at me. ‘Why didn’t anything eventuate between the two of you?’ She raised the letter I was reading just moments ago. ‘He clearly had feelings for you, you for him too. This reads like a boy in love.’

I scoffed. ‘I doubt that. By the time I felt the same way, he was in love with Juliette.’ I was all too aware of how hard the timber floor felt against my bare feet as I made my way over to them. ‘Six years later, I’m overhearing that my pain makes me unlovable … And I mean, he was right. Luke couldn’t stand the pain and treated me like dirt because of it. Maybe it’s a good thing, nothing eventuated.’

Luke was my first boyfriend; we met during my second year of undergrad. The perfect first boyfriend until I started getting side effects of the medical interventions. After him, dating became even harder, and eventually, I gave up.

Now Hunter was back in my life, and I wanted him all over again. Except that more complications arose than just a stupid comment he made at nineteen. He was my employee, and still very much Violet’s half-brother, even if she was okay with it. I came with problems that were far too much to bear, even for me.

I leaned over the island.

‘So why did you hire him?’ Lola handed me the letter. ‘Why read through these and hurt yourself?’

‘“Let bygones be bygones”,’ Violet whispered. ‘That’s what you said to me two weeks ago.’

‘Better yet, why not talk to him? Was it a misunderstanding? Who was he talking to?’ Lola prattled off a hundred kilometres a minute.

‘First of all, I found the box while cleaning out some of Gran’s things.’ I folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. ‘Secondly, he was talking to Cooper and Ethan.’

‘Oh my God, and you believed he would actually say that shit?’ Violet exclaimed. ‘Honey …’

‘I was seventeen!’

‘So you decided to be petty for nine years?’ Lola asked.

‘Well — I-I-I — Fuck.’ The girls looked at me, urging me on while I stammered over my words. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. It started like that, sure, but then I started Sonography the following year, he became a third-year med student … We both got busy. Then we kinda … forgot about each other.’

I collapsed onto one of the textured seafoam barstools. The girls exchanged glances.

‘You never answered my question,’ Lola said.

‘And what was that?’ I asked.

‘Why are you sifting through this box?’

I let out a throaty groan and threw my head in my hands. ‘Because he’s the same as he was back then. Just obviously older, more mature. He's more, you know ...’ A sigh escaped from my lips, and I held my head in my hands.

‘I knew it,’ Violet sang.

‘Hon, you should talk to him. Text him. I don’t know.’ Lola said.

‘We’re friends, that’s all I can have right now,’ I replied. ‘He’s here to settle down close to family. That can’t be me, and you girls know that.’

There wasn’t anything else left to say, aside from the "I wish it were me" that sat on the tip of my tongue. He was the one who sat with me during flare-ups, or who got my dark sense of humour. Every letter I read, it was clear he loved me too, probably since the age of nine. His being here was causing me more anguish than my Endometriosis and Dysmenorrhea combined.

Ironically, it was those conditions that made me stop caring about dating. I made peace with the fact that I would never know what it felt like to be held at night, let alone be truly loved by someone. Or that I may never get to have a child of my own unless I adopt, or by some miracle, a doctor performs an egg harvest, but that was a struggle to find.

I slid off the stool and pushed open the back door, letting in the sea breeze. The laughter of children assaulted my ears immediately. My heart ached.

‘Surely, there’s a doctor somewhere,’ Vi said.

I shrugged and leaned against the cold white aluminium door frame, staring out at the clear blue sky and water.

‘Okay, enough sadness for one day,’ I announced, turning back to face them. ‘Let’s go out and celebrate Lola’s good news.’

The two women exchanged looks of sadness.

‘Sure,’ they said in unison.