Roanoke is a small city less than an hour by car from the farm, we go once a week to buy supplies. There is a closer town, Rocky Mount, but there’s not much there—just a school, a bank, a feed store and a grocer. Roanoke is a pretty, orderly place, and people seem nice enough, though they find it difficult to understand me. When I tell them I am from Australia some are surprised that I have white skin, that I speak a version of English. It seems that they do not know a great deal about the world beyond their own. They’re keen to tell me how things are done here, for they seem to think it’s the only way, and that this is the very best place on earth to end up. Everyone goes to church on Sundays, including us, for hours of singing and sermon. Some in the congregation have sons who have been away at war, and some of those sons haven’t come back, but that war was so far away it seems like it hasn’t changed them. They didn’t even have rationing coupons or blackouts.

Something else different is the cold. It’s so cold that you feel you’ll never get warm. The second night after I arrived it snowed, and in the morning when I woke up the world had changed completely. Everything was covered with a blanket of white. I thought it was beautiful but Mrs Jackson said it only meant more work at the end of the day. It was beautiful, though, Mum. I wish you were here to see it. It makes the cold worthwhile. And the house is warm, at least: there are fireplaces and oil furnaces in every bedroom.

So really it is as cosy as anyone could wish for. I’m glad that Dad’s hip is better and that the new herd of cattle are settling in. I’m glad you’ve got help with the milking so it doesn’t all fall to you and Dad and Fred. Give my love to everyone and be sure to write soon. I can’t tell you how happy it made me to get your last letter.

Love from your daughter,

Sarah

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As I posted that letter in Roanoke I thought of everything I hadn’t told Mum. I didn’t tell her how Roy was late to the train station to pick me up, or how he limped in with his mother and father on either side. How strange he looked in his pressed pants and snap-button shirt, belt buckle high on his waist, his hair grown long over his ears, the grimace which was his new smile. He grabbed me in a tight embrace and said, ‘You are a sight for sore eyes, Sarah. Thank God you’re here.’