Bob

It started with a letter, one letter it went like this:

Dear Tom,     

I’m having a barbecue and I’d like you, Sally and the kids to come here, they’ll love it, we’ve got a pool and Bob tells me the neighbours and their kids are really nice. Though I’d never go meet them myself, I’m too shy. I sit at the window watching them all play together; it reminds me of when we used to live together. I wish we were a joint family again with every last niece and nephew.

Your loving sister,

Martha.

At that time I didn’t know why they were so worried, but mom and dad kept on whispering to themselves and said we can’t go. I decided there was a mystery behind Aunt Martha and I was going to find out about it. I’m the curious type and I don’t tend to let things lie as, they are nothing happens around the house without me knowing about. My older brother Ben doesn’t like it, he calls me nosy and I call him boring, he just sits all day on the computer doing whatever he does.

I decided to find out what was up with Aunt Martha. I snuck into mom and dad’s room and took the letter. I spent the rest of the night designing a letter inviting Aunt Martha here apparently from mom and dad. When she arrived, mom would have no choice but to put her up for a few days giving me time to investigate.

It was not until next evening that she arrived, in a tornado of umbrellas and bags. As I suspected, they had to let her stay and when she said, she was sorry that Bob, her husband couldn’t come he was busy, they exchanged mysterious glances and showed her to her room, they were all too friendly. I was not going to stop till I found the out why my parents were so suspicious of Aunt Martha; they seemed to treat her like a poisonous snake. I went and asked mom what uncle Bob did for a living but she answered dryly that he used to work for the air force. So I thought he might have retired and must be living on pension. I decided to look up his profile on the net if he was in the air force he would show up and I wanted to see what he had achieved. I typed Robert Theodore (He is nicknamed Bob) on the search bar and a military link showed up there it showed a picture of a young man with a cocky smile holding a helmet and he had a lot of medals on his coat, but I was shocked to see the message: “lost in the field may his soul rest in peace”! It couldn’t be true Aunt Martha talked as if he was still alive! So they must have confused him with another person. I decided to ask mom about this, she called dad into the room they both had very grim faces. “We should have told him earlier”, said mom. I asked them, “told me what?”

“your uncle Robert died, aunt Martha is not in her right mind, she’s just so lonely but afraid of making friends, poor Martha”, sighed dad.