KoL1 – The Letter 10am

“You think she’ll stay with him?” Jess asked with a mouthful of pins. “Hey, don’t move! You’ll end up with your hem all higgledy piggeldy!”
 
Her mother straightened up again on the stool that she was standing on but her face remained pinched.
 
“What on earth makes you asks that? Why do you doubt?” she asked.
 
Jess stuck the last pin into the hem and stood back to admire her handy work. She crouched to the floor and squinted at the hem.
 
“Turn!”  
 
Joan turned slowly, teetering on the stool.
 
“Does this colour look alright on me? Doesn’t look like lamb and mutton does it?” she asked Jess, rubbing her hands across her ample hips and slapping her belly. “Oh if I only I could keep this bit sucked in,” she sighed.
 
“Mum, you’re fine. Fine,” reassured Jess. She was already packing her things away into the wicker sewing basket she had on the table.
 
“Great. Ok. So, what makes you ask that then?” Joan repeated her question.
 
“Well, mum, I don’t know. Its just that, its taken her a long time to be with him if that was what she wanted and I can’t help wondering about it all.” Jess was leaning back on the table now, her hands behind her, her head slightly off to the left, just as she had always done since she was a child and something puzzled her. Joan looked at her and smiled.
 
“Listen love, eighteen years is a fine long time, you’re right, but she was married and she didn’t want to break those vow,” she said.
 
Jess was twirling a section of her long black hair around her forefinger. “I know mum, but you’d have thought, oh, I dunno. I just hope that she doesn’t hurt Uncle Bruno, that’s all,” she said, then turned, picked up her basked and went out towards the car.
 
Joan watched her slender back retreat. She was a good girl Jess. They’d done well in bringing her up, Arnie and her. Hadn’t always been easy right enough, Jess had gone right off the rails in her teens, into alcohol, boys, loud music and fast cars, but she’d turned out alright in the end.
She walked through into the kitchen and started running hot water into the bowl. Sure, Caroline had taken her time in committing herself to Bruno but she must have had her reasons. Bruno was 59, old enough to know what he wanted from life and there must have been something about Caroline that he like, nay loved, to have waited for her all that time. It did worry her a little, but to be honest, she just wanted to see him happy.
 
“Muuuumm! For heaven’s sake, you’ll mess that dress up if you’re not careful. Why are you doing the washing up in it!” Jess had come back through the kitchen door and was frowning at her mother. Joan pulled her mouth down in a scolded child look and scuttled out of the kitchen and back into the living room.   Within minutes she had returned in her standard navy blue jeans and blue t-shirt.
 
“Better?” she grinned.
 
“So, you think he’ll be alright then?” asked Jess.
 
“Who? Oh, Bruno. Sure. He’s big enough and tough enough don’t you think?” answered Joan.
 
Jess nodded her head non-committally and wandered back into the living room to fold up the dress that her mother had thrown over the back of the sofa. She worried about Uncle Bruno. Sure he was a big guy, old enough to know his mind, but he was also a gentle giant. A big softie.
 
She grinned thinking about how he used to play with her and Paul when they were little. He’d bring sweets and hide them behind the cushions of the sofa. He’d get on his knees and tickle her until she threatened to wet her pants or just play kerplunk with her in the evening. They used to build Indian retreats under the trees in the garden and if they heard the ice-cream van, that race each other to the road so he could buy her 99 softies that he’d then try to squash on her nose, all to shrieks of laughter and protests from her mother.
 
Somehow it just didn’t seem right that someone had made him wait 18 years to tell them they loved him. But then Caroline had been married and Bruno had chosen to wait.
 
Jess shook her head and pushed the thoughts out of her mind. She figured she was just over-protective of special Uncle Bruno. She headed back out to the kitchen to help her mother dry up.
 
As she passed through the door she saw her mother, ashen white, one hand clutching the sink, the other holding a letter.
 
“Mum, what is it?” she cried.