Her movements are stiff.
That bad leg makes her favour one side, shuffling back and forth to the kitchen.
I doubt she has visitors often.
For obvious reasons.
“Is Mrs Ambrose home?” I ask.
“No, love. She doesn't live in Jundah anymore. Gone to stay with her daughter.”
“Where?”
“In Barcaldine."
Mum must be lonely without her.
I feel a hollowness in my gut, knowing that our kind elderly neighbour has gone.
I’ve been sending letters to her address for years.
Have they arrived?
Again, she seems to know where my mind has wandered.
“She still owns the house. I look after the garden for her. Feed the chickens, water the roses, that sort of thing. One of the lads from across the river does the lawns every once in a while. Wish he could do ours. It's a bloody mess. Been waiting for your dad to clean up his shit, but he never does.”
Drawing back the curtains, she shoves the window open until it creaks.
Pale afternoon sunlight pours into the room.
Illuminated dust motes swirl in thick spirals.
“And I check her mail box, of course.”
“You do?”
Her eyes are warm as she speaks.
“I've kept them all, Marco. Every single letter.”
She limps across the room and opens the narrow door of the linen cupboard.
Folded fabric and thread spools are stacked in old biscuit tins.
Yellowed sewing patterns have been bundled carefully together.
She hauls a blue laundry hamper toward me.
Peeling back the towels, she reveals her secret stash.
More than one hundred and thirty envelopes.
Stuffed with letters that younger me has written over the last decade or so.
One almost every month for eleven years.
She's tied each bundle with thread.
