by Eric Asher
“Mum she loved us so much but she knew that we all loved her too. She wouldn’t have done this if she didn’t think that we loved her as much as she loved us.”
We sit there for a while and we decide to take everything home so that we can see what we want to do with it all. It seems a shame to empty the box but at least we know we can put it back when we want to keep it safe.
We use the phone to ring Mr. Duffy, who must have been waiting outside the door because he comes in so quickly. We lock up the box and before we leave he asks us to sign a form to say we removed items from the box, then he sees us back out through the bank. We shake hands and mum and me leave the bank and walk back to the car in silence. A lot has happened today and we need to take it all on board.
The first thing I do when we get home is to translate the first message in the book. It says “I love you more than you will ever love me.” I’m intrigued so I type Hans Christian Anderson into the search bar on my laptop. It tells us that Riborg was his unrequited love, the one he loved more than anybody else. The one that didn’t love him back. How sad. I know how he feels!
After we have had dinner and a couple of bottles of wine, we are sat at the dining table and we very carefully open Auntie Jenny’s letters. We have no idea what is inside them. We didn’t know she had been married until today. What other secrets was she hiding from us?
“Are you ok mum? Are you sure you want to do this? I know you were apprehensive earlier.”
“I know I was, but you’re right, Jenny left those letters there for us to find, they must have some kind of meaning to us.”
Mum takes them out and puts them on the table and arranges them in date order by postmark.
“It’s strange” she says. “These were sent to her here in Ireland. I would have thought that they were love letters from Philip.”
“Well let’s open the first one and see what it says” I say really excited.
Mum opens it and starts to read it out loud.
“Dear Jen
If you are reading this letter then the horrible disease, that was eating me up inside, must have claimed my life. I am so sorry that I have left you behind to cope with the sorrow that I know you will undoubtedly have.
Just remember that I have always loved you and will continue to love you in this life that I am now in. I will always be watching over you and will make sure that when the time comes for you to join me, I will be waiting with open arms to receive you.
It doesn’t matter how long it is until I see you again, my beautiful little swan, just remember that I will see you again.
My love as always
Philip xx”
“Wow mum, he loved her a lot. I wonder why she didn’t talk about him when she came home.”
Mum wipes her tears. “I think it was too painful for her. They obviously loved each other a lot Faith. It’s not very often that kind of love comes around. I have been lucky with your father, he would do anything for me and for you.”
“Let’s open the next one mum. I want to see what happens next.”
She folds the read letter back up and carefully puts it in the envelope. Then she lays it down gently and picks up the next one.
“Jen
I know it has been a while since my first letter, but I wanted to give you time to grieve for me. I know that you will never stop grieving but it has been a year since my death. I hope this letter finds you well and it doesn’t cause you too much pain.
Before I died, I made some provisions for you. I know we weren’t married for long so I know that legally it will have been a minefield, but there are some investments that should be maturing about now. I had these put in your name and they will be transferred into your bank account on my anniversary.
There are many more of them to come and they will arrive on my anniversary every year until you have received them all.
I hope that you have started to live your life again and the pain has eased slightly for you.
My love as always
Philip xx”
“Look Faith, the writing is smudged. Jenny must have cried over this one and smudged the ink.”
“Mum they are so beautiful, she was so lucky to have had that kind of love. One of a kind love.”
Mum again folds the letter carefully and puts it into the envelope. She opens the next one.
“Jen
How are you doing? How are you really doing? Am I a distant memory yet? Should I even have sent this letter? Does it open too many wounds?
Maybe I was being selfish and I didn’t want you to forget me. I know I won’t have forgotten you, my beautiful little swan.
I have enclosed a present for you to remember my love. I saw your beauty before you even saw it yourself.
You never thought you were beautiful and I think it was on our wedding day when you looked in the mirror and realized that wearing that amazing white dress you really did look like the beautiful little swan that you were always destined to be.
I mean every word I have written in that book.
My love as always.
Philip xx”
Mum and me just sit there looking at each other. “He must have sent her the Ugly Duckling book with this letter.” I say pulling the book out of my bag. I carry it with me all the time because then it feels like I have a bit of Auntie Jenny with me.
I read the inscription one more time and we both cry. We cry for our loss of Auntie Jenny and also for the loss of never knowing this man who loved her so much.
“There are two more letters Faith. Can we read them another night? I am too emotionally drained to read anymore.”
“Of course, mum, this is hard on you too. I know you miss her a lot, I do too.”
It’s Monday morning already and I can’t believe Auntie Jenny has been dead for over a week. I get up and get ready for work. I missed not seeing Jake last week and I can’t wait to see him.
He isn’t in the office when I get there so I sit at my desk and the first thing I notice is that everything has been moved around. My pens weren’t on that side of the desk when I left a week ago. Then when I open my drawer, to put away my mobile phone, I notice that there are some health bars in the drawer. Is someone trying to tell me something, I know I need to lose a bit of weight but that is not nice.
I turn on my computer and it looks like it wasn’t closed down properly and I can see Sasha’s log in details. She must have been sitting at my desk while I was away, not at her own. Talk about jumping into someone’s grave quickly. I log out of her emails and log back in using my details.
There aren’t very many emails to do because I stayed on top of everything while I was off. I’m busy trying to catch up on Jake’s diary when he strolls in. He smiles in my direction and then suddenly the smile leaves his face. “You’re back then I see, you’ve decided to come back and grace us with your presence.”
He stands there looking at me, I can’t believe he is being so horrible when I thought he would be happy to see me. I have been gone for a week and I thought he might have missed me or something. I can feel the tears starting to sting my eyes.
I take a deep breath, holding back the tears I say “yes I am, ready and willing to work, Jake.”
“Good come into the office in about ten minutes and bring me an espresso, you know how tetchy I get without my morning coffee.”
He turns on his heels and walks away into his office. At the same time Sasha comes over to my desk “what’s wrong with him this morning, he was grand all last week, no moaning or shouting.” She smirks and then sits on the end of my desk.
“So, I’m sorry to hear about your auntie, I know you used to visit her all the time. I hope the funeral went well.” She says.
“As well as can be expected I suppose. Mum is still really upset. She was very close to her, you know. So how’s it been? You know looking after Jake. He said you were doing a good job.”
She smiles and then says “yeah it was ok, he started the week off picking on me b
ut I soon put him in his place. Sometimes all it needs is for someone to stand up to him.”
“Really? You did that? I never would, I would hate for him to get annoyed with me for doing that.”
“Well you see Faith, that’s your problem. You like him too much to be yourself around him, you are just like a lapdog. As long as you keep being his lapdog, he will keep treating you the same way. I don’t mean to be horrible Faith, it’s just I hate the way he treats you and he is so much nicer when he isn’t being mean.”
I open my mouth to answer her when my phone rings and I see it is Jake. “Oh my god I forgot his espresso, he is going to kill me.” I run off to make his coffee, ignoring his call.
I hear Sasha answer the phone while I am making his coffee “Hi, yeah she’s gone to make your drink, Sir.” She laughs.
“I had a great weekend, what about you? Oh really. Was it good.” I wish I could hear what he is saying on the other side.
“No I didn’t do much yesterday just lounged around, I was knackered after Saturday night.” She starts giggling and laughing.
Now I am getting really annoyed, he never asks me what I did over the weekend. I finish making his drink and signal to Sasha that I am taking it into him. She nods her head and says into the phone “she’s coming into you now, remember be nice to her. Please.”
As I walk into his office I hear him say “anything to make you happy.” I can feel myself getting angry. Jake is obviously trying to get into Sasha’s knickers and being nice to her to make it happen. No wonder he is never nice to me, he has never once indicated that he wants to get in my knickers. I am starting to get really angry.
He hangs up the phone, looks up at me and smiles. This time I see it is aimed for me, whereas the first time was because he thought Sasha was going to be sitting in my desk. “Thank you Faith. I hope everything went well last week. Sorry if I was rude earlier I just needed my coffee. Take a seat and tell me how things went.”
I stare at him and sit down. This has never happened to me before. I sit there for ten minutes telling him about the funeral but I don’t tell him about my inheritance, he doesn’t need to know that. When I have finished telling him, he launches straight into what he needs doing today.
I’m sat with Jake for about twenty minutes when he has finished telling me what to do today. I leave his office and walk back to my desk and my mind is swimming. I’m annoyed at Sasha for flirting with him when she knows he is my boss and she knows how I feel about him. I am even angrier with Jake for flirting back, he’s not supposed to fraternise with the staff.
I’m busy all morning and after lunch I’ve seen enough flirting going on between Sasha and Jake, it’s driving me to distraction. After everything that happened last week I know what I have to do.
I get up and march into Jakes office. I don’t even knock. He looks up and he says into the phone “got to go, talk to you later.”
He puts the phone down and says “what are you doing in here? I didn’t ask you to come in.”
“Well are all the niceties over now? Did you think that you could be nice to me for one day and that would last me a year?”
He starts to splutter. My heart is racing.
“What?!? Faith?”
“Jake I am sick and tired of you being mean to me. I was coming in to ask you for some time off. I have a lot of things that I need to take care of at home, what with my Auntie dying it has brought a lot of things into perspective. I want to take a sabbatical for a few months. That will give me time to straighten my head out and then I will be ready to come back and be the best personal assistant you have ever had.”
“You think you can come in here and demand time off?”
“I am not demanding it Jake, I am asking for the time off. In my contract it states that I can ask for a sabbatical and you can consider it. Should I have gone to HR to ask them instead? You’re my boss and therefore I came to ask you first.”
He looks at me and it takes him all of five seconds to change the look on his face. His eyebrows raise and knit together in the middle. He leans forward and puts his clenched fists on the table. I have never seen him so angry.
“Well before you marched in here, I was actually going to call you in. While you were off last week we found out that Sasha is actually very capable of doing her job and yours together. Therefore, we won’t need you any more Faith. Your position is no longer available.” He sits down and gloats at me.
I can’t believe what he has just done to me. I know it’s only because I shouted at him and he was never going to do that anyway. It hurts and I can feel the tears slowly sliding down my face. I don’t care if I upset him now, not when he has just fired me.
“What? Just because you want in her knickers does not make her better at my job than me. You men are all the same, all you want is a nice bit of totty on your arm and in your bed and you will stop at nothing to get it. I don’t know why I wasted all these years listening to you be mean to me. You’re a bully Jake! A big bully!” I stand up and walk to the door. I open it and then I turn to face him. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you Jake Matthews.”
I walk through the door and slam it as hard as I can. As it is an internal office the partitioning starts to shake. I don’t care. I stomp over to my desk and grab my bag and coat and without saying a word to anyone I walk out of the office that I have devoted the last seven years of my life to.
It is only when I eventually get home that I break down. I must have been fuelled by adrenaline because now I feel bad for the way I spoke to him. Maybe I should ring and apologise. I reach across to pick up the phone and then something stops me. I remember why I wanted the time off, why I went into him in the first place.
I smile to myself and walk over to the mirror in the lounge, above the fireplace. I look into the mirror and say “today is the first day of the rest of my life.”
I go into the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine, reach into my bag and pull out the brochures I sent off for last week. I sit down and smile thinking of all the changes that are about to happen in my life.
It’s Tuesday morning and it feels strange not to be getting up for work. When I get out of bed I go into the kitchen, put the kettle on and open up my laptop. I notice I have been removed from the email list but I don’t care that isn’t what I want to look at today.
I bring up the website for “A New You” and read the credentials of the doctor in charge. His name is Toby Whyte and he has been a Cosmetic Surgeon for ten years. He is from Ireland but lived in the States for most of his life and gained his qualifications there. It goes on to list some of the A List celebrities he has treated and it looks like he came back to Ireland only two years ago.
I make coffee and then take the phone in my hand; I am going to do this before I change my mind.
I dial the number and wait patiently for someone to answer it. “Good morning A New You, how may I help you?”
“Hi, I am looking to book a consultation with Dr. Whyte please.”
“Ok that shouldn’t be a problem. Let me see, what is your availability?”
“I’m very flexible so really whenever you have the first appointment that’s free I suppose.” I can feel my heart racing; I’m getting very excited.
“OK Dr. Whyte is fully booked up this week, he can do Tuesday at ten in the morning next week if that is ok.”
“Ah I thought I might get an appointment sooner than that, I made the decision and I’m ready to go.” I am very disappointed.
“Well I’ll tell you what. Sorry what was your name?”
“My name is Faith Noonan”
“Well Faith, I will book you in for Tuesday next week, but if we have any cancellations then I will ring you and give you first refusal. How does that sound?”
“That is fantastic, thank you.”
“Great ok, then I just need a few details off you so that I can start a file for you.” She then goes on to ask me lots of questions about my name, address, phone number etc.
After another ten minutes I hang up the phone, slightly disappointed that I don’t have an appointment for this week and slightly excited because there is still a chance that I can get in this week.
I make breakfast and continue Googling on the Internet and when I find what I am looking for I make another call.
“Good morning, Smiles Dental, how may I help you?”
“Hi Sarah I’m hoping to book an appointment for some cosmetic dental work please?”
“Let me look at the appointment book.” She pauses “I have an appointment on Thursday this week at ten in the morning if you are interested.”
“That would be perfect thank you.”
She takes my details and books me in for Thursday.
After I hang up I decide to go and have a shower and get ready for the day. I have a big smile on my face. I spend the rest of the morning going through the house deciding on some of the superficial work that needs doing on the house. I draw up a list and take a trip to Ikea where I leave with a boot and back seat full of cabinets, rugs, bedding and lots more.
It’s so exciting and exhilarating to make these changes when only two weeks ago I never thought I would be able to do this. I do the easy things and then I ring Dad and ask them both to come over to have a look at what I’ve done, but also for Dad to put up the cabinets because, even though I can make them up, I certainly can’t hang them on the walls by myself.
Mum is super excited when she walks around looking at the changes I have made. “I just need to paint some of these walls now mum and I am going to make some feature walls as well to make it more modern.”
“It’s beautiful Faith, I didn’t know you could put these together.”
“I suppose I could always do it but I never had the inclination Mum, work always came first.”
She smiles at me because she knows how I feel about work. I rang her yesterday to tell her about Jake and what happened at work and she told me that it was all for the best.
While I let dad put the cabinets together, I sit in the kitchen with mum and we talk about what I am going to do with Jenny’s money.
