All That You Left

[Frankie Tillington]

Out of Character:

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[Henry Tillington]

The letter Henry had received from his daughter Gabriella had alarmed him quite a bit. He had, of course, known she was at Hogwarts together with his other daughter, but somehow he had not seen this coming. Why had he assumed their lives could continue the same way? Keeping both girls separate outside of school but allowing them to mingle while there? Obviously he had made a grave miscalculation, though he really couldn't blame either girl for wanting to reach out. Even though she never said it, Henry knew Gabriella didn't have an easy time with the split between the two halves of the family. Back when they had decided to do this, it had seemed like the most logical solution. There were two adults and two children, and both adults wanted to live somewhere else entirely. Surely it would be less painful for all involved if they didn't organize some sort of complex schedule, carting either girl halfway across the globe to see each other and the other parent. Though, looking back no it now, he knew that had been too practical an approach. Sometimes it was easy to forget human emotions didn't follow neat lines of logic. That much had been obvious when he had received the note from Gabriella, informing him that she had received a letter from Liberty and insisting he should write one to Francesca. It had been several days since he'd received said note, but he knew he couldn't say no to the request. Somehow, he had gotten it into his head that his older daughter wouldn't need to hear from him. She had Liberty, and in his imagination she had always remarried someone more suitable to her. He hadn't thought Francesca would want anything to do with him. But apparently he was, once again, mistaken.

Dear, My, Francesca,

I apologize for the late nature of this letter. I hope you were not waiting too long to hear from me. I suppose that is not a fair way of wording it, as you have been waiting quite a long time to hear from me. But what I meant is that I didn't know around when Gabriella told you to expect this letter.

I hope Gabriella has spoken to me about you, quite often in fact. I believe your presence at Hogwarts alarmed her at first, but once she got to know you she was clearly happy to have met you there. From the things she has told me about you, I gather you are a very strong-willed and confident girl. It will not surprise you to hear you have received those traits from your mother.

You may have gathered by now that writing letters isn't my forte. Especially not when so much is at stake. I have written a few different versions so far, and am forcing myself to simply send this one. I hope you can forgive me for that, and many other things. What I want you to know is that I am sorry. I'm sorry that I haven't seen you in so long. I'm sorry that you had to miss your sister for most of your life. I hope you are happy and I hope you understand that the decision to stay apart has not been an easy one. I think about you quite often. It would be a lie to insist it was less than daily, in fact. I remember you the way you were. Even as a young girl, you were very independent. Protective of your sister too. I have no doubt you have kept those good traits and developed many other ones.

Even though these changes in our lives have been unexpected, I'm happy you met Gabriella. I hope more things can change, as terrifying as that can be. Perhaps this correspondence can be the start of a greater change.

Thank you,
Love,

Henry Tillington

 

[Frankie Tillington]

Frankie was used to receiving letters from her mother in the owl post every now and then, so it hadn't been the original arrival of the bird that had spooked her. No, it was the way the letter had been addressed – 'Francesca Eleanor Tillington' – that had had her skin breaking out in goosebumps. It had sounded scarily official, and she had wondered who she had offended and what she had done wrong.

Frankie supposed now that she should have guessed it was the letter Gabby had asked their father to send. Only her sister had ever called her Francesca at this school, so it wasn't surprising that she might have picked that up from their dad. The letter itself had been far less scary, thankfully. Frankie hadn't really known what to expect, but reading her dad's words for the first time ... it was astounding to know that this was really him. Not fuzzy memories, or her mother's stories, or things Gabby had said about him in passing. Her dad had really written to her. Frankie had felt a buzzing sensation in her chest throughout the whole day, had kept pulling the letter out of her pocket during lessons to read over again and again. It had felt almost too good to be true. All that time wishing and wondering ... and now she had a letter in her hand, as simple as that.

Except it wasn't that simple, really. Frankie had laughed when her dad had told her he wasn't very good at writing letters, because she was exactly the same. And then she had tried to write a letter back and it had sort of gone ... all over the place. Frankie grimaced at the image of it in her head as she tied the letter to an owl's leg. Her dad was at least better at writing letters than she was. Maybe she should have tried to write more than one? But it was more authentic this way, Frankie thought with a shrug. Giving the owl a quick stroke, she stood back to let it fly out the window, watching it go with her hands stuck in her pockets. The buzzing sensation in her chest didn't seem like it was going anywhere anytime soon.

Hi,

I didn't know if I should call you dad, because you didn't sign your letter as dad, but calling you Henry sounds weird so, I just started with hi. It was super cool to get your letter, thanks for taking the time to send it! It was really nice to read, and to just see what you sound like when you talk. Write. You know what I mean. I asked mom about you a lot when I was a kid, so I sort of thought I had this idea of you in my head – which is sort of right, I guess, but it's not, because it wasn't ever really you. If that makes sense? I think I'm even worse at writing letters than you said you are. I think it's cool we have that in common.

Gabby Gabriella's awesome, and I know you know that but I'm glad you got to at least have each other after... the thing. Um. Like, at least there was a silver lining? Mom taught me to try and find the positives in life, and so I think it's positive that you guys got to be close, and it's so positive that you guys want to try and change things for the better too. Like, we're all okay I guess, but we could be better. Well, I could be better. Mom said when I was six I tried to write a letter to you guys and I wrote on it Daddy & Gabby, London, and then tried to hand it to a muggle postman. It was written in crayon, and apparently I sulked for a whole week when he wouldn't take it.

But I have a lot of fun too! I surf, and skateboard, and roller-skate sometimes, and I play Quidditch! I'm on the Gryffindor house team and I even scored a goal once in my first ever game! They called me off the bench to replace someone even, I wasn't even a real team member yet. It was totally awesome. I like duelling, and stuff like that. I guess I'm trying to say I'm not very good at school stuff, so I wanted to get that out in the open right away. I'm trying to work at it, but it's kind of a slow process. I'll let you know if I ever get an O!

Wow, my hand hurts from writing all this. I think this is the most I've ever written in one go. I guess I was just excited to tell you stuff. It was awesome to hear from you, and I guess I also want to say... don't beat yourself up about missing stuff. It's all in the past now and we can't go back, so let's just go forwards. It'll happen how it happens, and I think it's going to be great.

Also, if you're too busy to write again that's okay – or maybe just write one quickly and send it before you can think about it! I bet I'd love it anyway.

Thanks for writing. I'm really glad you did.

Frankie (aka Francesca)