Letters

Chapter Four

I’d put the letters into two piles. The opened pile that, I now know, mum and dad had read and had been hiding away. And the un-opened pile that had my name on the address. I don’t know which pile upset me more. While both involved keeping things from me, the only people who could answer the one question I wanted and needed answering, were buried this afternoon.

I’m sure they must have had a good reason, at least I hoped so. I NEEDED it to be a damn good one. I can’t think of any reason why they would have raised one child over another. I looked at the dates on some of the envelopes and they spanned a long time. The handwriting had changed over the years. The most recent being a month ago.

I stood up pacing around my living room. I was agitated and stressed. These were feelings I was having on a regular basis over the last few days. I didn’t like it. I hadn’t told any of my friends about the letters. I wasn’t sure if this was me being incredibly stupid or not. It just felt like something I should do on my own. Or more importantly had to do on my own.

I spent the next hour looking between the two piles. What sort of questions was I going to have after reading them? And more important. Was I going to like the answers I was going to get? Was opening these letters going to anger me, upset me or were they going to make me happy? Or as happy as I was likely to get under these circumstances.

I paced and sat down, and paced and sat down some more. If I wasn’t careful I was I was going to wear a hole in my cream carpet. I finally sat down on the floor my back against my soft red couch and took the first letter off my brown coffee table.

I soon stopped reading the letters on the pile addressed to mum and dad. I was heartbroken. I’d cried more reading the first few letters than I felt I had all week. They were letters from my grand-parents keeping them up to date on what was happening with Thomas. They were raising Thomas and I still had no earthly idea why. As I looked over to the clock I saw it was almost midnight. I’d been reading through these for hours. My grand-parents obviously wanted mum and dad to know how Thomas was doing. It got me thinking if mum or dad ever replied to the letters. I have no idea why they even kept them if they were going to keep this huge family secret from me. As tired as I felt earlier I was wide awake now. With a fresh mug of coffee I made myself comfortable on the couch. My ass was starting to hurt and not in a good way sat on the floor.

I got to a letter that went back to when I was twenty.

Dear Kate

I’ve been sending you letters for a while now and while I understand you may never be ready to speak to me I just want you to know I’ll never stop writing to you unless you ask me to stop. I was five years old when mum and dad decided it was best for everyone that I live with gran and grandad. They’re really nice people. I know they’d love to meet the woman you have grown into and not just see photos of you sent from mum and dad. My friends say I should hate them for what they did but I can’t bring myself to do that.

Again I’m sorry for what I did to you. I was a five year old boy at the time and I had no way of knowing what I was doing was wrong.

I’m still at the same address from my last letter. My phone number is still the same. I’d love to hear from you.

Thomas

I don’t know what happened and still I was as confused. I walked over to my tablet on the dining table and just started writing. I was finally going to contact my brother.