MRS BRENT KNOCKED on the cottage door and walked in, shouting, ‘Only me!’
Izzy was making soup; Elspeth was at the table, watching. They both turned.
Mrs Brent handed three letters to Izzy. ‘For you, all the way from America.’
Izzy wiped her hands on her apron, and took them.
‘They’ve been delivered to your old cottage. I was in there doing a bit of tidying up and there they were on the doormat.’
Izzy looked at the letters, turned them over, read the sender’s address.
‘They’ll be from your young man,’ said Mrs Brent. She waited for Izzy to open them and tell her what they said. But Izzy told Elspeth, to mind the baby and went outside to be alone while she read them.
Mrs Brent hovered, looked out the window at Izzy, looked at Elspeth who was saying nothing. As no gossip was forthcoming, she left, saying she’d keep an eye out for any more letters and hand them in.
When Izzy returned, she put the letters down on the table and went back to making soup.
‘He’s back in Montana, working at a local hospital. He’s building a house near to where his parents live. He’s living with them at the moment.’
‘And?’ said Elspeth.
‘He wants me to go there.’
‘Go,’ said Elspeth. ‘You must go.’
‘I have a baby. I can’t just get up and go halfway across the world at the drop of a hat.’
‘Take him with you. He might like to meet his son.’
‘He doesn’t know he has a son.’
‘Well, write and tell him,’ said Elspeth. ‘He should know he’s a father.’
Izzy said that indeed he should. She’d write and tell him.
‘Go and see him, take Sam with you. It’d be an adventure,’ said Elspeth.
‘I have no desire for an adventure,’ Izzy told her. ‘I’ve had enough of adventures.’
‘Go,’ said Elspeth. ‘America, Izzy, how can you resist? You might meet Clark Gable.’
Izzy told her not to be silly. ‘Besides I’d rather meet James Stewart. I prefer him.’ She sighed. ‘Why doesn’t Jimmy come to me?’
‘Because his life is there, he wants you to see it. Maybe he wants you to share it.’
‘He hasn’t said he loves me,’ said Izzy.
‘Do you love him?’
Izzy was silent for a long time before saying, ‘Yes.’
‘So go and find out if he loves you back.’
‘I’ve not got the money.’
‘So, get the money,’ said Elspeth. ‘Beg, borrow or steal it. But get it.’
At night, when Elspeth slept, Izzy sat in bed reading Jimmy’s letters. He said he’d wanted to come to her but had been shipped to America. He told her he wanted her to see this place where he lived. ‘You’ll love it.’ In his next letter, he pleaded her to get in touch. ‘Why haven’t you answered my letter? Is there something wrong? Is there someone else?’ In the third letter, he was desperate. ‘I have phoned your cottage – no reply. I’m hoping that if you no longer live there, someone will post this on to you. I also phoned the manse to speak to your parents. I was told your father had died and your mother was living somewhere in the village, I wasn’t told where.’ He begged her to write to him.
Izzy took up her tortoiseshell pen and wrote, ‘Dear Jimmy, You have a son . . .’
When that was done, she started a second letter – ‘Dear Julia, I have a huge favour to ask of you . . .’