The Letter. Elizabeth Blackwell
in each other. Cooper understood Cassie’s drive, and he didn’t embarrass her with public displays of affection.
Together, they’d blossomed into a confident, focused couple. Cassie transformed herself from an awkward bookworm into a polished woman, her unruly hair smoothed into sleek ponytails and chignons, and Cooper’s shy silences gradually faded as he became an ever more powerful force during law-class debates. Entering a world where intelligence wasn’t a liability, they had emerged as winners. Ten years after they first met, they decided to take the next logical step: marriage.
It was a wonder they found time to get engaged at all. The subject had first been broached in the most unromantic way possible—which was par for the course in their relationship. It happened as Cassie was in the final stages of buying a condo in the heart of downtown Chicago, on the top floor of a modern high-rise.
“What do you think?” she asked Cooper during her final walkthrough.
He paused in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan “I could get lost in this view.”
As Cassie watched him, standing in the place she pictured herself living for years to come, she realized Cooper was one of the few constants in her life. Friends who didn’t understand her nonstop work schedule had drifted away. Her social life outside the office was nonexistent. Cooper was the only person who understood her ambition. Not only did he understand it, he encouraged it. It was the perfect partnership; they each pushed each other to be the best.
“So, you like it?” Cassie asked.
Cooper looked at her, then back out the window with a perplexed expression “The view?”
“The apartment,” she said.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Could you see yourself living here?” she asked.
“With you?” His eyes widened with surprise, then pleasure.
“Yeah. Move in, get married, the whole deal.” She’d thrown it out so casually, without thinking. Emotionally, she felt as if they were already married. All that was missing was some paperwork.
Cooper smiled, that gradual widening of his mouth and quick blinking she’d found so endearing when they first met. That cautious smile was the only hint of the shy boy hidden beneath the high-powered-lawyer facade.
“Sure,” he said “The whole deal.”
And that was it. A quick hug and kiss, but no declaration of eternal love. For a moment, Cassie wondered if such a monumental decision should have been marked with something more. But Cooper wasn’t one for grand romantic gestures. Raised in a family that valued lighthearted teasing over deep emotional discussions, Cooper had never been comfortable talking about his feelings. Within a week, he’d moved in with her, although she refused to acknowledge the new living arrangement to her grandparents “They’re really old-fashioned,” she cautioned Cooper.
So Cooper had made it official a few weeks later, whisking Cassie off to an expensive Italian restaurant and arranging to have a diamond ring perched atop her chocolate torte. Lydia’s relief over Cassie’s engagement was amusingly obvious and Cassie wondered if she’d figured out that she and Cooper were already living in sin. To Lydia, Cassie’s impending marriage became a grand creative project, filled with opportunities for sewing and baking and girl talk. Lydia had once had vague artistic aspirations; now, all her pent-up creativity was channeled into household projects. Cassie was worried she’d offer to make the wedding dress herself.
Henry seemed to approve of Cooper, but the approaching wedding didn’t dent his Midwestern reserve. Whenever the talk turned to reception venues and flowers, he would escape to his greenhouse in the backyard. He’d built it when he first started his landscaping business; now that he was mostly retired, the space had become his personal retreat. Cassie loved to watch him stroke tender new shoots as they first erupted from the dirt in tiny pots. It was the same way he used to stroke her hair when she was little, on the evenings she would lie in bed crying, missing her mother. His tall, big-boned body would twist awkwardly to sit on her bed as his hands carefully brushed the tears from her cheeks. She knew, even through the pain and grief, that she was loved. That she was safe.
This gratitude was what kept Cassie coming back to her grandparents’ house every Sunday for lunch, despite the long drive from downtown Chicago. Normally, Cassie would have had no reason to visit the basement during the few hours she spent there. But that Sunday was the day Lydia announced she’d be making Cassie a quilt as a wedding present.
“The traditional style would be the Wedding Band,” Lydia had explained as she cleared the lunch dishes off the table “A pattern of overlapping circles, to symbolize a continuing union.”
“Um, I guess,” Cassie said. She couldn’t tell her grandmother that a bright, homemade quilt would never fit with the modern, minimalist furniture she and Cooper preferred. It would be the sort of thing that sat in a closet, whipped out only when Lydia came to visit.
“Do you have your colors picked out yet?” Lydia asked.
“Colors?”
“You know, your linens and towels. I want to make sure the quilt matches.”
“Grammy, we don’t even know where we’re going to register.” Or where they were going to get married. Or when. Or anything else that newly engaged couples usually talked about.
“Too busy with work again?”
Cassie nodded “Cooper and I only had time for one dinner together this week,” she said. “The planning is going to take a while.”
Lydia shook her head and gave Cassie a pitying look. She didn’t understand the life of a corporate attorney. Didn’t know that you could complain about the hours, and whine about never seeing your boyfriend, but still love your job so much that the adrenaline got you through all the late nights and canceled vacations.
“Well, you won’t get out of picking fabric,” Lydia said. “I’d hate to put together something you don’t like. Why don’t you take a quick look downstairs while I finish with the dishes?”
The basement was Lydia’s workroom, the place she designed quilts with the methodical intensity of a military maneuver. A large table in the center of the room was usually strewn with scraps, and rolls of material were lined up along the walls, sorted by color. Lydia did her sewing throughout the house—while watching TV or on the back porch on warm summer mornings—but the basement was her mission control.
“Stop by the greenhouse when you’re done,” Henry told Cassie. “I’ll show you those new pansies I was talking about.”
So Cassie reluctantly headed downstairs by herself. She quickly scanned the colors along the wall, all of them bright and eye-catching and utterly wrong for her sleek apartment. Cassie and Cooper wanted their home to be a tranquil retreat from work and stress; there were no colors anywhere, merely shades of white and cream and gray. Lydia’s cheery bandana-red cottons and bold royal blues would have no place there.
Cassie knew Lydia stored smaller fabric scraps in a series of boxes along the floor. She could see stripes of color through the translucent plastic. Maybe a pale green or understated taupe was tucked away in there. She took the top off a box and began riffling through neatly folded piles of cloth. And that was when she found the letter.
I will always be yours.
F.B.
F.B. Her only clue to the writer’s identity. She scanned her memory for the names of her grandparents’ friends, but couldn’t come up with anyone who had those initials. Besides, it was unlikely that the person who wrote this letter would still be a friendly acquaintance. This person had been desperately in love with Lydia. Given that she’d been married to Henry for fifty years, the mystery man must have long since been disappointed. But for some reason, Lydia had kept the letter.
Some people, Cassie had always believed, don’t have the capacity for soul-baring, earth-scorching romance.