The Letter. Elizabeth Blackwell
rubbed her hands against his back, as if the pressure could push out the hurt.
“Tim was their favorite,” Henry said. “Everybody loved him. He was going to take over here someday. He was the one who tended to this apple orchard—did I ever tell you that? He had a knack for growing things. He said I wouldn’t have to worry about Ma and Pop, he’d take care of them while I went off and saw the world.” Henry’s body began shaking with sobs.
“It’s going to be all right,” Lydia murmured, although she knew it wouldn’t. She repeated the words softly, in the tone Mother had used when she was a child, frightened awake by a bad dream.
Henry’s fears tumbled out of him—his terror that his parents would never recover, the way he could barely face his own mother, the emptiness that stretched before him without end. Lydia kept her arms pressed around him. Not looking at him, knowing that he’d stop talking if he met her eyes.
Eventually, Henry’s heaving breaths slowed down, and his voice drifted off into silence. His face was red from crying. Lydia pulled a handkerchief from her coat pocket and handed it to him.
“Sorry about that,” Henry said, his voice returning to its usual flat tone.
“Don’t worry,” Lydia whispered. “I’m glad you told me.”
“There’s no one else I can tell,” he said. “No one to talk to. Except you.”
They looked at each other, and between them flashed an acknowledgment that everything had changed. A moment before it happened, Lydia knew it was coming, knew Henry would put his hands against her cheeks and guide her face toward his, knew their lips would meet in a soft kiss. Lydia tasted a trace of salty tears on Henry’s lips, and she closed her eyes tightly to stop herself from crying.
They might have stood there for a minute, or it could have been hours. Time stopped in that moment, underneath Timothy’s apple trees. Henry’s strong arms enveloped Lydia’s narrow shoulders, as if he was comforting her now, reassuring her that together, they could get through anything.
“Lydia,” he whispered, his lips pulling away from hers and brushing against her cheek. “I’m sorry….”
She reached up and moved his mouth back toward hers. “I’m not,” she said.
Henry’s mouth twisted slightly to one side, as if he was unsure whether to move it toward a smile or a sob. “I love you so much,” he said.
“I love you, too.” She said the words because it seemed right, but as soon as she’d spoken, she knew they were true.
Then their lips were together again, and his tongue found hers, and they were locked together in a desperate embrace, their mouths hungry for each other in a way that left them gasping for breath. His fingers were tangled in her hair, while her hands pressed against his lower back, pulling him tighter against her. Finally, they drew apart, both shaken. Henry dropped his head and rested his face against Lydia’s shoulder.
“Promise you’ll never leave me,” Henry said.
“I won’t,” she said. “I won’t.” And in that moment, she meant it.
Chapter 3
Cassie
For someone who made a living asking tough questions, Cassie was terrified to come out and ask her aunt Nell the big one: Was my grandmother ever in love with someone else?
Aunt Nell was the family eccentric, a role she seemed to embrace and played up at every opportunity. Married three times, she’d reinvented herself with each husband. Starting off as a demure young housewife in the 1950s, she scandalized the family by getting divorced, moving to California and throwing herself into the women’s movement in the 1960s (a period Lydia dismissively referred to as “Nell’s preachy phase”). That was followed by her earth mother period, when she spent most of the mid-to late ’70s living off the land in a series of communes, eventually retiring to a rural village in northern Wisconsin, where she’d spent the past twenty years running a part-time bed-and-breakfast, animal shelter and artists’ cooperative.
Cassie saw Nell every few years on major family occasions—distant cousins’ weddings, Lydia and Henry’s fiftieth anniversary party, Cassie’s graduation from law school. But while Cassie loved her great-aunt, they didn’t have much of a personal bond. Cassie and Nell had never spent enough time together to have heart-to-heart conversations. In any case, Nell didn’t seem the most promising person to turn to for advice.
Still, Cassie’s curiosity was stronger than her embarrassment about digging around for family secrets. During a break between meetings at work, she called her aunt. After four rings, she heard the somber voice of Nell’s husband, Fedorov.
“Yes?”
Nell had met Fedorov through a group that raised money for Russian immigrants. He claimed to be a potter, although Lydia noted tartly that he spent far more time sitting on Nell’s front porch than in front of a kiln.
“I’ve never seen a man with a greater talent for doing nothing,” Lydia had said after meeting him for the first time. “He’s only marrying Nell for the green card—I don’t know why she can’t see that.”
Green card or not, Fedorov had lasted longer than any of Nell’s previous husbands—almost ten years—and despite his talent for doing nothing, he apparently knew how to make Nell happy. Whatever his charms, they were well hidden; Cassie had rarely seen him deviate from a state of low-level depression.
“Hi, it’s Cassie. Is Aunt Nell around?”
“No. She is with the animal rescue for today.”
“Well, could you tell her I called?” Cassie asked.
“Yes. Of course.”
Cassie tried to think of something else to say, but came up blank. Fedorov would probably be just as happy if she didn’t prolong their encounter.
She thanked him and hung up. Did he possess enough energy to write down the message? Cassie wasn’t sure. Even if Nell did get the message, she could be flighty. When she came to Cassie’s law school commencement ceremony, she seemed to think it was Cassie’s college graduation. Her memory of Lydia’s past might be similarly flawed.
Cassie’s computer pinged to indicate the arrival of a new e-mail message. Just what she needed. She hadn’t even had time to respond to the thirty-four messages waiting in her in box that morning. She glanced at the screen and saw that the sender was Jeffrey Gannon, one of the firm’s senior partners and head of the health-care group she worked for. Her boss.
C-
Need summary of major projects you’ve completed since starting with us. Top priority.
-JG
The terse tone wasn’t alarming in itself; Jeffrey always corresponded using the fewest words possible. But the request was odd. Why, when the health-care group was swamped with work, was she being asked to put together a glorified résumé?
Cassie picked up the phone and dialed the number for Jeffrey’s assistant, Marie, the one person guaranteed to know everything going on at the firm.
“Hey, Cassie.”
“Hi,” Cassie said. “Listen, I just got this weird request from Jeffrey to put together some kind of summary of all the work I’ve done in the last three years. Do you know anything about that?”
“Not really,” said Marie. “He didn’t mention it to me, anyway.”
“Okay.”
“Well—but I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with you…” Marie’s voice trailed off.
“What?” Cassie asked.
“First thing this morning, he got a call from