Dear Stephen
I hope you’re well. You look it from the way I’ve been stalking you on social media – oh and congratulations on your imminent fatherhood. Hope you’re going to be a better one than ours was!
Wow – where had that come from? It sounded one hundred per cent like her inner voice, and also one hundred per cent like she was unhinged. Maybe even like she was threatening him. It wasn’t like he knew she was really a mouse of a human being.
What if she did let him know? Not that she was a mouse – but that she struggled with meeting new people? It would be honest, the way he’d been honest with her about his feelings in his letter, and that would be a good way to start their relationship, wouldn’t it? It would be easier to put it in an email too. That way, if it made him think she was a freak, he just wouldn’t reply, and she’d be saved an awkward meeting. And if they did end up meeting, he’d be forewarned and understand why she had turned the colour of a stop light.
Dear Stephen
I hope you are well. I know it’s been a long time since you sent me your letter, but I haven’t really known how to go about replying. It was a shock to find out about you, as you predicted, but it hasn’t just been that which kept me from getting in touch. I’ve always been shy – I have social anxiety in fact – so the thought of meeting up with a stranger who I’m related to has been a tricky one to get my head around. I would like to meet, but I’m currently working in Sicily. It’s actually the start of what I’m hoping will be a new career as a makeup artist. When the film wraps in October maybe I could visit London and, in the meantime, we could get to know each other a bit more via email?
Best wishes,
Lila
She reread it a couple of times and then, before she could chicken out, copied the email contact she’d put for him in her phone from his letter and hit send.
Then she put her cell phone down and lay back on the bed. Her heart was galloping again, so not the best solution for getting off to sleep.
But she’d finally done it. She’d contacted her brother.
