Unexpected Correspondence
Chapter 3
A few hours later, Kitty was leaning against a tree in the clearing where she had last met Thomas. She had arrived early so, to pass the time, she pulled out Sylvie's letter to re-read. She was in the middle of Sylvie's account of how a boy called Billy had made fun of her because she was only a girl and her appropriate and mature response of putting a frog down his shirt, when the rustle of boots on leaves alerted her to Thomas's arrival. They greeted each other amiably before Thomas curiously asked her what she was reading.
"Sylvie sent me a letter," Kitty replied, "I'm not entirely sure how she managed it, but she's always been very determined to get her own way." She paused uncertainly, she was not entirely sure if he wanted to listen to her talk non-stop about her daughter again, but his expression was encouraging so she continued before she could change her mind. "Would you like to read it?"
"Why don't we swap letters?" Thomas suggested as he found a suitable log to sit on, Kitty joined him on the log as he pulled out a wad of letters from his pocket. "You can pick whichever you want."
"I only get to read one?" Kitty asked disbelievingly, "My letter is worth at least four."
"Definitely not four, my family has a flair for the dramatic so two letters should be more than enough."
They haggled back and forth over the number of letters until Kitty spontaneously kissed him and Thomas suddenly found himself agreeing that four letters really was a reasonable amount. Victorious, Kitty immediately stole his pack of letters and flicked through them, trying to pick which four she would read.
"I recommend these two." Thomas said, pointing the chosen letters out, "My sisters are not speaking to each other at the moment and, instead of having a reasonable discussion about it, they are venting their frustrations at me."
"Any other recommendations?"
"My nephew wrote a nice letter, he's about the same age as your daughter but probably far less brave from what you've told me." That letter was also added to her small pile. The final letter she picked randomly from the remaining stack.
"Good choice." Thomas remarked when she showed him her final choice.
"Who wrote it?" She asked.
"My father. Good luck trying to understand what he's written though, he's a little… eccentric."
Reading Thomas's mail was quite insightful into his home life, which, Kitty mused, was probably part of the reason he was letting her read his mail. As promised, the two sisters mostly complained about each other and the childish insults were all the more funny when Thomas told her that his sisters were in their early twenties and not in their teens, like Kitty had suspected.
His nephew's letter was in many ways similar to Sylvie's. Both children covered similar subject matter but a comparison of the two letters made it immediately evident which child was being given the better education. Sylvie's letter may have been messy but the spelling and grammar were flawless, the same could not be said about Alistair's letter. It was a startling reminder of the difference between her background and Thomas's and it raised a few questions as to how Thomas had managed to become a surgeon. Kitty decided she would ask him about it at a later date before she turned to the next letter.
The letter Thomas's father had written was confusing to say the least, the man seemed incapable of completing a thought before moving onto another. She could definitely see why Thomas had labelled him as 'eccentric', despite the lack of structure to the letter she did get the sense that Thomas's father was very proud of him. Her thoughts drifted to her own father and she wondered whether he would ever speak to her again.
The polite seating distance with which Kitty and Thomas had begun their time together was gradually lost as Kitty read through the letters. By the time she had finished the fourth letter she found herself rather comfortably leaning against Thomas's chest, one of his arms had found its way around her and his chin was resting on the top of her head as he scanned the letters along with her.
Her reading complete, she handed the letters back to Thomas who assembled them back into his pile and put them back into his pocket.
"Do I get to read Sylvie's letter now?" he asked. She handed the letter to him and watched as his attention was immediately caught by the drawing.
"You look like you're about to murder your patient." He remarked, causing her to laugh.
"Sylvie once drew a picture of her great uncle's funeral. Everyone, including the corpse, was smiling." Thomas shook his head in amusement and gave her back the drawing.
"Are you going to write back to her?" he asked as he read through the letter itself.
"I'm not sure if I can. If I write to the house then the letter will probably get thrown out before she sees it, I might be able to send the letter to the school, if I can find the address, but it's possible they will throw it away if they find out it's from me."
"That is a problem, they really seem to want to cut off any contact between you and her." Kitty nodded. "Who's Vera?"
"I'm not sure," Kitty replied, "She might be my ex-husband's new wife, or fiancée, I don't know whether he has remarried yet or not."
"Is your divorce relatively recent?"
"I don't know whether it has gone through yet, I haven't been notified. The proceedings have definitely begun though." She paused, assessing whether or not she should say something else. "That's why I couldn't meet you that day, my ex-husband had ordered me to meet him in town to sign some papers." There was a gap in the conversation as Thomas processed the new information.
"I understand." He clearly had more questions but was not going to raise them at this point, which Kitty was grateful for. It had taken a lot of effort for her to even mention her ex-husband to him and she was not sure if she could continue.
They spent a few more minutes in companionable silence until Thomas handed Kitty the rest of his letters for her amusement. They parted about an hour later, when Kitty was no longer willing to ignore the increasing frequency of Thomas's yawns and firmly sent him back to sleep. He kissed her goodbye before urging her to write back to Sylvie.
"You will regret it if you don't at least try to send her a reply."
As Kitty waited alone in the forest, she mulled over her current situation. By the time she was able to walk back to the hospital without anyone suspecting she had met Thomas, she had made a decision and as she walked she planned what she would do next.
AN: I hope you guys enjoyed the KittyxThomas moments. There should be at least two more chapters, possibly more, I won't know until I have a clearer plan. Right now I've roughly planned the beginning and middle but no conclusion (which there really needs to be, some of my middle is pretty angsty). There's going to be a gap between this chapter and Chapter 4 since my plan is very rough and I need to do a little research for it as well. Thanks for the reviews, they always brighten my day :)