Continued, The Correspondent
FROM: sybilvanantwerp@
SUBJECT: SHE WROTE
Dear Basam, Hattie Gleason has written me AT LAST, as I live and breathe.
It arrived at my house the same day as myself after a trip.
(I went to Texas to spend a week with a man.) She is a botanist living in Scotland.
She has brothers named Declan, John, and Douglas.
She is four years younger than me. She wants to see a copy of the DNA match.
(Of course she does. It was IDIOTIC I didn’t send it along with my letter, but perhaps I was feeling wary, as well, of sending off something so personal, but anyway, I will send the document to her.
All the personal information it lists she has—my name, birthday.
And, of course, the months I’ve waited for a letter in the mailbox from her, I’ve thought it must be a terrible shock.
It was a terrible shock to me! Perhaps one doesn’t welcome shocks of this kind, necessarily.
Perhaps she’d burned the letter, or thrown it away thinking it was a scam.
It certainly seems like a scam. A “hoax” is the word she used.)
She said I have pristine penmanship, which is true. It’s unfortunate our entire correspondence has been through the e-mails so you have never seen it. I rather feel the way I write e-mails is less thoughtful than written letters. I’ll have to mull on that, another day.
I’m absolutely frantic, happy, nervous, buzzy. It’ll be time to clue in my brother, Felix, now, I suppose. Or maybe not. Maybe my girlfriends, but no. They will want to participate in the letter writing. I may tell my neighbor. He’s a gentle sort, a good listener.
Fill me in on your life.
Sybil