Read Online Feels Like Home by Lisa Ireland - Free Book Online

received over the years. Maybe there was a sliver of sentimentality in her mum after all.
    Most of the boxes were earmarked for the bin, but these last half a dozen would need to be sorted through.
    Jo carefully removed the lid of a box marked Johanna — Personal Correspondence and pulled out a birthday card.
    Darling Johanna,
    Â Â  Wishing you a very happy third birthday, Princess
    Â Â  Lots of love
    Â Â  Nanna Lil xxx
    Warmth spread through her chest and tears pricked in Jo’s eyes as she remembered Nanna Lil’s twinkling eyes and sense of fun. She’d been Jo’s ally in the early years, before cancer had taken the flesh from her bones, the light from her eyes and, eventually, the life from her body.
    Jo pressed the card to her lips. ‘I miss you still, Nanna,’ she whispered.
    She replaced the card and pulled out a bundle of letters bound together with a perfectly tied satin ribbon. Her breath caught in her throat as she realised what these were.
    Ryan’s letters.
    He’d written every week that she was away at school and she’d kept each one, sleeping with it under her pillow until the next eagerly awaited missive arrived. Ryan’s letters had kept her sane during those long months away. His sharp witticisms about life in Linden Gully made her laugh out loud and his tender expressions of love brought tears to her eyes. Each week he sent her a lifeline, something to hold on to in the sea of despair that was her life at boarding school.
    Clearly her mother had had no qualms about prising open the locked metal box these letters were stored in. The heat spread from her chest and up into her cheeks as she imagined her mother reading Ryan’s beautiful words.
    She pulled on the ribbon and let it fall to the floor, greedily seeking Ryan’s familiar handwriting.
    Dear Joey,
    Â Â  How are you? I hope this has been a better week for you. Those girls in your dorm sound like a bunch of infantile idiots. I reckon you should start publishing an underground newspaper to put the wind up them. You could write stuff like, “Which daughter of a federal politician secretly steals chocolate from the school kitchen?” or something like that. I’m sure you can come up with better stuff than me. You’re the writer after all.
    Jo smiled. Ryan had always believed in her, even before she believed in herself.
    So I guess I’d better update you on this week’s goings on in Linden Gully. I know I’m no Pulitzer Prize winner but hopefully my musings will give you some idea of the Gully’s latest happenings (such as they are!)
    Jo’s laughter echoed through the almost-empty attic as she read Ryan’s recount of being stuck in line at the supermarket while Mrs Kingcott gave Sarah Petersen a blow-by-blow description of her recent hysterectomy (or ‘women’s troubles’, as Mrs Kingcott had discreetly euphemised).
    He went on to talk about the Lions’ chances of winning a game this season (dismal), Nate’s new foal (he was there at the birth!), and Dan’s new girlfriend from the city (annoying princess type).
    And then suddenly he was serious.
    Jo’s eyes filled with tears at the memory of reading these words for the first time.
    I miss you, Jo. I see you everywhere: at the waterhole; riding down Maddock’s Gully; even in the line ahead of me at Glasson’s. But of course you’re not real, just a mirage teasing me, always just out of reach. I’m counting the days until the holidays. I can’t wait to see you, to hold you, to hear the sound of your voice.
    Â Â  I love you.
    Things had been so simple back then. She and Ryan were in love. All they wanted was to be together. During her boarding-school years he was everything to her, her reason for being.
    But then they started to grow up and Jo discovered she had bigger dreams than simply being Ryan’s girlfriend. She wanted to write, but to do that she knew