TONIGHT, YOU, GRAY, AND Gretchen fly out to Heathrow, and the excitement in the air is electric. At the end of November, you and Gretchen gave a month's notice on 83 Moncrieff. You moved out just before Christmas, and back into your old room at home — now the guest bedroom — where you've been staying for the past five weeks. Once Rob left for Cape Town in the new year to start his studies at UCT, Mom and Dad agreed to let Gretchen come and stay in his room for the last week or two. In the meantime she'd been crashing with mates.
You're in your room, busy zipping up your suitcase — the same battered leather wheelie one you've been using for laundry these past few years — when Mom comes in and hands you a sealed envelope.
'Something for you to read on the plane,' she says and smiles, a little sheepishly. 'Don't open it now. It's a long flight and if you can't sleep, it'll give you something to do.'
'Oh okay, thanks.' Then, just to make sure, 'Is it something I should be worried about?'
'No, no,' she reassures you. 'It's just a whole bunch of things I wanted to say after, you know, what's happened these past few months, with you and Beth, and I never got a chance to.'
'Okay, cool. Thanks.' Oh dear, sounds serious. You slip the letter into your hand luggage and announce, 'Rightio, All packed and ready to go!'