Oh. Molly turned a bit shy at the mention of the appropriate attire for swimming. To be honest? Not much. “Well, you want to have as few layers as possible. Too much fabric makes you heavy and it makes it hard to move.” She smiled despite her embarrassment. “And not ‘attempting.’ You can float. I promise. Just not if you decide to weigh yourself down with fabric. When I swim, I usually wear an old shirt and, well, I have a pair of trousers I use.” It wasn’t unusually for her to run around in men’s clothing. No one in Tide – besides Bran – had cared. And you simply couldn’t sail or swim in skirts. When times were hard, she hadn’t been the only woman out and about helping the men.
Molly looked back at her letter. There had to be some way to navigate the situation. She could still refuse Rena’s offer, but the last letter she had written had taken her all night to compose. It was possible that Rena could help her with part and then Molly could finish it in her own. But she didn’t want to become secretive when Rena’s offer had been so genuine. That would probably be horribly rude. Honestly, she answered, “I don’t know. I’m not even entirely certain what I want to say yet.”
With that she reached into her skirt pocket and carefully unfolded a piece of parchment. She bit her lip before speaking again. “This is what they sent me.” She kept it in front of her, not handing it to Rena. “I just – I just want to say thank you. I just wanna say that I’m still okay and they shouldn’t worry so much.” Her eyes went back down to the letter in front of her. She tried to ignore how the page started to swim and waver. She was not going to cry.