Page 44 of Nineteen Letters
“I’d like that, and I think my dad would too. It’s funny, he doesn’t remember us, yet I still get the feeling he knows we belong to him.”
She smiles before opening the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It’s not lost on me that she didn’t elaborate on what I just said. My father’s situation and hers are very similar, but I don’t think she feels like she belongs to us anymore.
“Let me get the door for you.”
“It’s okay, I’ve got it.”
I lean back into my chair and read over the letter in my hand.
Letter five…
Dearest Jemma,
The ninth of August 2002. It was your thirteenth birthday, and because it was such an important one, your mum had organised something special—a high tea with all of your girlfriends from school. It was going to be a grand affair. The invitations were handmade and looked like something you’d receive for a wedding, not for a teenage girl’s birthday party.
She bought you a pretty pink party dress—it was all satin, frills, bows and lace. She’d put up a large white marquee in the backyard, and bunches of pink helium balloons adorned the tables.
Your grandmother was coming down to help with the food preparation. The menu comprised tiny quiches, bite-size jam tarts, fancy cupcakes and cucumber sandwichescut into dainty finger-size portions. They were brought out on multi-layered stands. It was all very posh.
Your mum had even booked you in at the local beautician that morning to have your hair done and your fingernails painted. Thirteen meant you were becoming a young lady, and she wanted it to be celebrated in style.
You weren’t a tomboy, but nor were you a girly girl, so let’s just say you were pretty pissed off with all her plans.
“I don’t want a stupid high tea!” you told me. “I don’t even drink tea. You should see the ridiculous dress she wants me to wear, Brax.” I struggled not to laugh when you stuck your finger in your mouth and pretended to gag. “I’m going to look like that ugly crochet doll that Ma has sitting over her spare roll of toilet paper.” I had to agree that the doll was hideous and creeped me the hell out, but I also knew it was impossible for you to look ugly. “I want to wear jeans and a T-shirt and go to McDonald’s with you and eat cheeseburgers until I puke, and have ice-cream cake. Lots and lots of ice-cream cake.”
I felt bad for you. You always looked forward to your birthday. Every year on the first of January your countdown began. I had to wait until December, so I never bothered counting down to mine.
“I’m sure it’s not going to be that bad,” I told you. I had no idea what a high tea even involved, but I knew that your mother always went above and beyond for you, so whatever she’d planned would be special. She also always made a big fuss of me on my birthday after my mother died. She was wonderful like that.
“I know this isn’t your thing, pumpkin,” your father had said a while later when he came searching for you. He always called you pumpkin. “But your mum has put a lot of effort into this party. She’s been planning it for months. Can’t you just go along with it? It’s just for a few hours. It would make her so happy.”
When he wrapped you in his arms and kissed the top of your head, I knew by the grim look on your face, that this party was going ahead whether you wanted it to or not.
Your mum invited all the girls from your class. Of course I was invited as well, but I was the only boy.
There was no way I was going to sit there and sip on pink lemonade and eat cucumber sandwiches with a bunch of life-sized girls who resembled Ma’s toilet paper doll. For a nearly fourteen-year-old boy, that’s the stuff of nightmares. Luckily your dad felt the same—though he hadn’t dared suggest not holding the party; he would doanything for you but the love he felt for your mum was something else—so we came up with a plan for us to be the waiters for the day. Your mum even hired us tuxedos, so we looked the part.
I’d been doing odd jobs around my house for months to earn extra pocket money so I could buy you a present. I bought you a kite. You used to love playing with mine when we’d go to the beach. Yours was multi-coloured like a rainbow, in the shape of a butterfly.
I was out in the backyard helping your father fill up a drink tub with ice when you came through the back sliding doors onto the patio.
“Braxton, you’re getting ice everywhere,” he said, but his words didn’t register. I was completely mesmerised by you. There was never a moment that I hadn’t thought you were beautiful, but this was the first time you’d stolen all my air and left me completely breathless. There’d be so many more moments like this over the years, but the first time is always the one that stands out the most.
Your long brown hair was down, just the way I liked it. The hairdresser had put soft curls in it, and a pretty pink bow to match your dress. You looked nothing like a toilet paper doll. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and so grown up. It was in that moment my truefeelings for you were confirmed. I didn’t just love you; I was besotted … completely head over heels.
“You can close your mouth now, son,” your father said in an amused tone.
His statement was enough to snap me back into reality. That’s when I realised the plastic bag in my hand was now empty, and its contents, the ice, had piled into a small mountain around my feet.
The party was going well, and you even seemed to be having a good time. Well, you were until Sonia Mitchell set her sights on me. She was the mean girl in your class, and you never really liked her.
I was over by the bar refilling the glasses of pink lemonade and placing them on a tray, trying my best to ignore her. It was rude of me, but she’d been following me around for over an hour and it was getting on my nerves. There was only one girl at that party I was interested in, and that was you.
A few minutes later, you approached us, grabbing one of the pink lemonades from the tray. I was both pleased and relieved when you came to stand beside me. You casually stared down Sonia, as you sipped on your drink. It did nothing to stop her advances, though.
“You must get bored hanging out with Jemma all the time,” she said in a bitchy tone as she looked you up and down. I heard you gasp from beside me, but I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to say or do anything that was going to ruin your party. It was your special day, and your mother had gone to so much trouble.
