The Letter. Elizabeth Blackwell
“Yes. When he died, that family fell apart. I know Father checked on Henry’s mother a few times, and he said she’d never recover. I don’t think her nerves were particularly strong to begin with, and then to have that happen…Timothy was clearly the favorite. So for Henry to be left—I can’t imagine what that was like for him.”
“But if he’d been through something so tragic, why wasn’t your mother nice to him?”
“I asked myself the same question, many times,” Nell said. “It was only later, during all the disagreements about Lydia’s schooling, that I recognized what was really going on. Mother and Father saw Knox Junction as a temporary interruption in their lives. They hadn’t intended to settle there permanently. It was understood that Lydia and I would leave when it came time for college and go somewhere prestigious. Most of the people in Knox Junction—people like Henry’s parents—didn’t have a college education. They finished high school, got married soon after and went to work on the farm. That was the pattern.”
But Lydia and Henry hadn’t gotten married after high school, Cassie knew. They’d both gone to college, in separate parts of the country. Had they wanted to escape Knox Junction? If so, it hadn’t lasted long; after their year in Europe, they’d moved right back to town. And now they lived in the house Lydia’s parents had planned to move away from but never had. Every day, Henry walked on that front porch where he’d first courted his future wife. Did he ever picture their teenage selves out there, painting and staring at the setting sun? Cassie tried to imagine them as shy young teenagers, but she couldn’t quite manage it. She couldn’t picture her grandmother, in particular, as a girl, unsure of herself and her future.
“Did your parents send Grandma to school in New York to keep her away from Grandpa?” Cassie asked.
“Oh, art school wasn’t their idea!” Nell said. “My parents saw it as a terrible waste. But Lydia got her way eventually, and I’m sure they were happy enough to get her away from Henry.”
“But they dated all through college, didn’t they?” Cassie asked.
“I assume so, although they didn’t see each other often. You have to understand, young people then didn’t jet across the country at the drop of a hat like you do. Lydia took the train home once a year, at Christmas. That was the only time we saw her. During the summers, she stayed in New York and worked so she could help with the tuition. I always assumed she and Henry had an understanding.”
“You mean they were engaged?”
“Oh, not exactly,” said Nell. “She didn’t wear a ring or anything like that. It’s just—well, I simply knew she’d marry Henry. Not that I wasn’t surprised when they came home from Europe as Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong! I suspect they eloped to avoid any family awkwardness. But as much as Mother didn’t want to see Lydia married to the local farmer’s son, I know she felt cheated out of the experience of planning a wedding. She meddled far too much in mine a few years later to make up for it!”
“I always thought it was so romantic, getting married in France,” Cassie said.
“Well, she was there for that study-abroad program. They had some sort of fight before she left—I’m sure he didn’t want her to leave, and Lydia made her grand statement by going off anyway—but it was only a temporary spat. Henry went over there and swept her off her feet and that was that. It was during my freshman year at Northwestern and I was quite resentful that Lydia’s drama completely overshadowed my first year of college!”
Something Nell said stuck in Cassie’s mind.
“That would have been Grandma’s senior year, right?” Cassie asked. “Don’t students usually spend their junior year abroad?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Nell. “Perhaps art schools do things differently.”
Cassie thought back to the letter. The lines about Lydia leaving suddenly, unexpectedly. Creating a new life. Words that might have been written after Lydia sailed off to Europe. Or perhaps the answer lay farther away, during those months Lydia lived on her own in France.
“Are you sure she never dated anyone else in college?” Cassie asked.
“She never mentioned it,” Nell replied. But now her voice sounded doubtful. “I suppose she could have. But why keep in contact with Henry all that time? Surely she would have broken it off with him?”
“I don’t know.” Cassie yawned. Almost eleven o’clock. Only a few more hours until Cooper left for London. She should get up to see him off, but right now, sleep was far more tempting.
“I’m sorry I don’t have all the answers,” Nell said. “But honestly, Cassie, does it really matter? Whoever this letter was from, it was written a long time ago. We all like to keep things around for sentimental reasons. It may not mean anything.”
Cassie pictured her grandparents as she’d seen them so often over the years: sitting companionably at the dining room table after breakfast, one glancing up over a section of newspaper to start a sentence that the other quickly finished. Whatever had happened in the past, Lydia and Henry now shared an unbreakable bond. Any romance might have long since faded from their lives, but Cassie had no doubt they were happy together.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know why I got so obsessed with it.”
“We all have our secrets,” Nell told her. “If I ever have the courage to write my memoirs, then you’ll get some real stories.”
“I’d love to read your memoirs,” Cassie said. “And thank you—I mean it.”
“It’s been a joy,” Nell said. “Do call more often, won’t you?”
“Yes, I will.”
After hanging up, Cassie tiptoed into the bedroom, passing Cooper’s snoring body on her way to the bathroom. She stopped for a moment, struck by the way his arms were flung haphazardly above his head, the way one knee protruded from the top of the comforter. Awake Cooper always stayed firmly in control, priding himself on remaining cool under pressure. It was one of the qualities she admired most about him. But now, seeing him so unguarded and loose, like a little boy, she was hit by an unexpected wave of tenderness.
As Cassie brushed her teeth, she thought about her grandparents at lunch the day before, comfortable in their shared silences, practically reading each other’s minds. What would it be like to have that kind of history with someone? To be with a person who’d known you through all the stages of your life? She’d spent ten years with Cooper, which had once seemed like an eternity. They had grown from teenagers into adults together. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she still didn’t know him. Had he really shed the shyness that had been so obvious during their freshman year of college, or had he merely covered it up? Did he ever long to simply be the way he was now, relaxed and unguarded, without worrying about the next step on the corporate ladder? And if he did let his guard slip, would she even recognize him?
Cassie had always considered herself lucky that she’d met her soul mate—thereby avoiding the dating disasters of her friends—but now she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps dating other people would have given her more perspective on how a relationship worked. Instead, like her grandmother, she was marrying the first boy she’d ever fallen for. Aunt Nell seemed convinced that Lydia had never dated anyone other than Henry. But the more Cassie thought about it, the more she felt that the secret of the letter lay buried in Lydia’s college years. Far from putting Cassie at peace, her conversation with Aunt Nell had only raised more questions.
Chapter 4
Lydia
Senior year of high school was supposed to be fun, but to Lydia it was torture. Everyone seemed to be anticipating the release of graduation—everyone except her. Because rather than heading toward freedom, she faced a future determined by the dreams and expectations of others.
College was nonnegotiable, of course. Mother had a degree from