The letter had said 1904 and cancer and that was eight years away – she’d be an old, old woman then. And the signature had been Jackson – an old family name, she wondered, carried on and on, a long chain of people who bore the name of Jackson Forbes?
She was stiff and numb, she knew. Later she’d be frightened. Later she would wish she had not read the letter. Perhaps, she did not know.
But now she must go back downstairs and tell Jackson the best way that she could.
She moved across the room and blew out the light and went out into the hallway.
A voice came from the open door beyond.
‘Grandma, is that you?’
‘Yes, Paul,’ she answered. ‘What can I do for you?’
In the doorway she saw him crouched beside the chair, in the shaft of moonlight pouring through the window, fumbling at the bag.
‘I forgot,’ he said. ‘There was something papa said I was to give you right away.’