The Letter Ch. 4

It is a few weeks later and I put the second letter in the lock box with the first one and tried to forget about them. In my mind I was wondering why Isabella would send mail here to Paola, knowing he was in Italy, but maybe she was hoping that it would get forwarded.  My insurance business was going great and my house was finally all finished and I was loving it.

An old friend of mine from school came home to visit her parents and called me to see if I would like to go to lunch and do some shopping with her, of course I said yes. I walked out to the mailbox to grab the mail before I met up with her and as I am looking through the huge stack of mail, there is another letter. In my heart I am thinking that this poor woman is in dire need to get in touch with Paola. I put the letter in the lock box and head out to meet my friend.

As I walk into the cafe, Jenna is sitting in the last booth, and she stands up and hugs me and says, "my gosh Rachel, you look great!" I say, "you too, Jenna, college and marriage sure agrees with you." She says, "well the college part anyway, Doug and I are divorced, he hit the bottle pretty hard when he lost his job and I couldn't bring him out of the funk he was in and we tried counseling and couples therapy, but nothing could reach him, so he checked himself into a rehabilitation center and we both decided that we needed to let each other go, so he could heal and not break my heart anymore.  He wanted it more than me, I still love him and we do talk about once a week, but he is a very different man now."

"It's pretty pathetic, I know, but I came home to clear my head and try to get over the hurt of our marriage ending." I stood up and hugged her and said," I am so sorry, Jenna, is there anything I can do to help?" She said,"yes let's go shopping, that always helps!" Jenna lets out a laugh and I knew that we needed to change the subject. I bring up the letters that I keep getting and I fill her in on the details of the story behind Isabella and Paola, and she says, "you know what we have to do, don't you?" I say, "we?" She says, "yes, we need to take a trip to Italy and find Paola, and give him the letters so he can open them and find out why someone is so desperate to get in touch with him."

In my head I am thinking, this is crazy, going halfway around the world to hunt down and locate someone for whomever is sending these letters. It may not even be Isabella. In my mind I am already calling the airline for two tickets to Italy. After shopping, we go online and see about getting plane tickets and I purchase two and she writes me a check for hers. I tell her that I need to go by my parents and let them know I will be out of town for awhile and ask them if they would look after my business and mail. I ask Jenna if she wants stay with me tonight and we will go to the airport tomorrow at 11:00.

We stop by my parents house and I fill them in on whats going on and my mom is standing there with a grin on her face and dad says, " you are such a hopeless romantic." I say, "I know, I must get it from you." Jenna and I stay for supper and then head to her parents house so she can fill them in and pack. Her mom meets us at the bottom of the stairs and hugs me and says its nice to see me back in town again. I hug her back and head upstairs to Jenna's old room that we spent so much time in when growing up. I am sitting on her bed and she is folding and packing and talking about all the cool things that we will see when we get there.