Emmeline basked in the warm sunlight of her eighteenth birthday, content in the knowledge that her time of freedom had finally arrived. Today she could finally spread her wings and fly away from this dreary place that she had known as her home for the past thirteen years.
As a five-year-old she has been brought here, to her grandparents' home on the isolated shores of Newfoundland.They had fed, sheltered, clothed her and protected her from the outside world but they had also imprisoned her. Her mother, Mindy, had disgraced them. She'd been known as the town slut and at sixteen had gotten pregnant before running away to far off Toronto. There, Mindy had given birth to Emmeline and was a good mother until she'd gotten involved with the wrong people and ended up in jail. Emmeline had been sent to live with her grandparents, who, not wanting to have Emmeline turn out the same way as her mother, homeschooled her and prevented her from speaking to boys or having any friends. There was no TV or radio in the house so Emmeline had lived a very sheltered and lonely existance. The only times she saw other people were on Sundays at church and the rare occasions that her grandmother sent her to town on errands.
It was quite by chance that Emmeline was outside when the mail came one morning when she was seventeen.Her grandmother was usually the one to collect it but today the postman, seeing Emmeline standing there, had handed her the mail instead of sticking it in the mailbox. He smiled at her than drove away.
Emmeline looked down at her hands and saw a few bills but a brightly coloured envelope caught her eye. It was addressed to her. It was from her mother.Just then she heard the front screendoor slam. It was her grandmother coming out to get the mail. Emmeline quickly stuffed the envelope down the front of her dress.
Later, in the privacy of her room, she opened the letter and read:
My dearest Emmeline,
