She hurried back to the hall with the wind trying to unwind her scarf and steal it. When she gained the calm of the reception area, she found a pile of envelopes and a small parcel on the desk. The post van must have visited while she was out. Carrying the stack into her office, she hung up her coat and changed back into shoes before sorting through it. The junk mail went straight in the shredder. The small parcel proved to be a lightbulb that Gwen had ordered for the large kitchen oven. An invoice came from a company that evidently hadn’t embraced the age of email, and the last was a long cream handwritten envelope addressed to Ms Esmerelda Wynter c/o Rothach Hall, Rothach, Isle of Skye – private and personal.
Frowning, she opened the envelope and smoothed the two sheets of writing paper inside.
Dear Esmerelda,
Mum and Dad say you’re known as Ezz or Ezzie. We don’t feel we can use your short names when we don’t know you but we’re your birth sisters and we want to say hello. We don’t have your email and didn’t want to use the contact form on the website of Rothach Hall, hence this letter.
The bones seemed to vanish from Ezz’s legs and she sank into her seat.
We are Julia Colville and Iona Berio née Colville. Our parents have very recently told us about the baby they made before we were born.
So, they really hadn’t known till now!
It’s so odd to think of them having a teenaged pregnancy (but not so odd hearing that Nan was NOT sympathetic) and we all cried when they told us. We would say ‘even Dad’, but actually Dad cries at anything. He wells up at people winning races or dogs needing forever homes. You might expect Mum to be the soft one, as she’s so small and quiet, but she’s also a coper.
We don’t know what to think about having a new sister. What do you think about having two?? We understand that it didn’t go well when you met Mum and Dad – or met Mum again, and Dad for the first time. That’s a shame because they’re lovely people, and obviously, there’s stuff you don’t know.
Ezz wondered what that ‘stuff’ might be, and glanced at the back of the letter as if someone might have written a clue there, before reading on.
It’s understandable that you were upset but we don’t want you to think that no one wants to hear from you, because that’s not true. Regardless of what happens with Mum and Dad, we – Julia and Iona – would like to get to know you in some way, so we can decide whether we like each other based on reality rather than on assumptions.
Ezz paused to read this twice, realising it was a conclusion she might have reached herself … if she hadn’t gone off like an emotional firecracker.
So, I’m Julia. I’m 39. I’m a therapist, but the kind who gives facials rather than the kind that counsels people who need help. I’m not tall and willowy, as Mum and Dad say you are. My doctor told me snarkily that I’m ‘below average height but above average weight’, but my partner, Hamal, says I’m curvy, which is a nicer way of putting it. My daughter Edina is four, and we’re looking at schools for September. Do you have children? Mum and Dad said they didn’t think so, but they don’t think they actually asked. They were pretty scared when they met you.
Ezz stopped again. She hadn’t thought of Kay and Rick being scared. They’d just seemed tense.
The handwriting changed, becoming less loopy but more sprawling.
Hi, this is Iona here. I’m 37 and I teach art at a senior school. Everyone says I’m like Julia to look at, so I won’t repeat her description, but they also say I’m different in temperament. I don’t know about that. Welike a lot of the same things, like art shows, Green Day and chocolate, but I suppose she’s quieter. Honestly, if you want to get anywhere with a class of thirty fifteen-year-olds, being quiet’s not really the way. I’m married to Vido. His grandparents were Italian, which is how he got the cool name.
We’ll put our contact details at the end. We don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to, but it would be great to be in contact. Great for us, anyway – we’re not trying to make up your mind. It just seems wrong not to know you at all. If you feel like sending a message or a letter or anything, please, please do.
Warmest wishes,
Julia
Iona
Email addresses, street addresses and phone numbers followed each of the names.
Ezz read the letter again. And then again, trying to make it feel real.
Her birth sisters had written to her.
They wanted her to reply.
With no idea for how long she sat staring at the cream paper and blue ink, she jumped when the front door clunked open, and Walter pelted into reception. ‘Hallå,’ he called breathlessly to Ezz, then seized the knob of the white door in both hands and twisted it open, vanishing inside. Filip, Emil and Astrid followed hard on his heels. After a few seconds, Mats appeared with Alvin and Liam. Mats glanced into her office, and when he saw her, he frowned. He vanished through the door, and she heard him calling to someone. In less thanhalf a minute he was back in her office, minus coat and hat.
‘What’s up?’ he murmured, rounding the desk. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
Wordlessly, she showed him the letter that trembled in her hand.
He scanned it quickly, crouching beside her chair. ‘Wow.’ He looked at her. ‘Another surprise. How do you feel?’
Before Ezz could attempt to describe the tangle of wonder, astonishment, fear and trepidation inside her, the white door opened and Erik’s voice boomed, ‘Mats?’ and then something in Swedish.
Flustered, Ezz scooted her chair away from Mats.
