You may think that you are being helpful and o so amusing, throwing Oscar and I together, but I assure you it is not appreciated. You may have grown out of him, but I have not grown in to him.
That didn't sound at all like I meant it to but you understand my point.
Yours (un)appreciatively, depending on further action,
Rose
Rosie,dearest,
I swear, say another word and I will stuff you with flour and set you alight.
I'm serious!
Yours irritably,
Rose
Dear Rosie,
Was it two cups of flour or three? Or three and a quarter?! I dare not ask again, you think me a big enough simpleton already. In all matters, not just those pertaining to rabbit pot pie. Two or three,two or three? This is useless! I don't see why you wouldn't just write your recipes down, then I might actually have a chance of remembering. Why do I need to learn how to cook anyway? O, this is ridiculous – I'm going to ask Oscar.
And take that look – which I know you would be wearing if I was ever stupid enough to say those words aloud rather than write them down here – off your face. Indeed, I grow quite nonsensical: I don't care!
I shall in no way capitulate to your fancies. I shall not surrender! Particularly not to do something so pea-brain stupidly embarrassing as fluttering my eyela
Ugh! It looks even stupider in black and white. How can you possibly think I would – as if I wouldn't pluck out my own eyeballs before I tried! And Oscar is perfectly capable of doing himself in if I ever looked coyly – Bah! I say. A hundred times, Bah!
Yours exasperatedly and proceeding-to-be-in-surreptitious-(but in no way romantic)-search-of-Oscar-ly,
Rose
Dear Rosie,
He's not coming back, is he? I knew it yesterday. He didn't come for the first time in, how many years? I lost count somewhen. I hardly remember a time without him though. Something stupendous has happened so long, long, long ago.
It should be raining. It should be raining cats and dogs, and goats and elephants and two-toed sloths and hulking wildebeests and any other animal that contrive to fall out of the sky! If he is gone, the world should be bleak and desolate and wretched.
But it's not. A gentle shower has made crocuses and bluebells hopefully poke their heads above ground and that is all. My first Spring in this place and he is not here to enjoy it with us.
Do you think I'll ever see him again? Rosie, I'm so confused because I think I will. It's not like hoping, I know it; I am absolutely certain despite all evidence to the contrary. And I'm not an idiot, I never have been – except that one time and it's hardly fair to throw that in my face. You have a good head on your shoulders, my father used to say and I am not given to flights of fancy that don't quickly crash back down to the hard, unforgiving earth that is reality.
So what is wrong with me? I should succumb to bleakest despair that Oscar won't return. But I haven't. There's something in me that's deep and still and ... waiting. Perfectly content to lie quiet until ... what?! I don't know and I don't like it and I want it to go away.
The sky's finally being properly overcast with huge ugly black clouds and it sounds like we'll have our first thunderstorm today as well. You're yelling up the stairs for me to get some rosemary for whatever it is you're making. Give me a minute, would you? No, don't – the less time I have to think the better.
Your servant,
Rose
