The Letter
Elizabeth Blackwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Mom, Dad and Rachel

For always listening

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

Cassie

Dearest Lydia, my darling,

This is my last hope, because I am desperate. Desperately in love with you and desperate to understand what happened. You won’t see me, won’t write. Why? I thought you loved me and I loved you and that would be enough. Instead you keep secrets, you keep things hidden even from the people who love you. But whatever mistakes you made and whatever mistakes I made, none of it matters. I don’t care. All that matters is that I love you. I love you so much my heart aches whenever I think of you. My arms miss holding you, and my lips miss the feel of your soft skin.

I wonder if you know the depth of my love for you. Perhaps I never told you what you needed to hear. So consider this my last stand. I love you, I always will, and I would do anything to make you happy. If you want a new life for yourself, I will try to understand, because your happiness means more to me than my own. What happens next is your choice. If you no longer want me, I need to hear it from you, otherwise I’ll keep hoping. I’ll keep looking for you, because without you I’m lost.

I will always be yours,

F.B.

Cassie fingered the pale yellow paper, softened by age to the consistency of tissue. No envelope, no date, no signature. Just those mysterious initials at the bottom, and a passion that still burst from the page—despite the years that had obviously passed since it was written.

Dearest Lydia…

The letter had been well hidden, tucked away between layers of cloth in a box marked Quilting Supplies. A box Cassie had walked by countless times in the twenty years she’d lived in her grandparents’ house. A box that, before now, she’d never touched.

Cassie had always found Lydia’s quilting slightly embarrassing. The fact that her grandmother’s main accomplishment in life involved sewing together mismatched fabric remnants symbolized the gap between her and Cassie, the distance between Cassie’s professional ambition and Lydia’s old-fashioned housewife ways. At seventy-three, Lydia was a full decade younger than the grandparents of Cassie’s friends. But Lydia had always struck Cassie as old before her time, a woman who’d married her high school sweetheart and settled down by the age of twenty-one. A woman who was content to help out with her husband’s landscaping business but never had a life of her own. Other than college and one year studying abroad, she’d never traveled or experienced the world. She lived quietly with her quilts in the same house she’d grown up in, making no mark.

I wonder if you even know the depth of my love for you.

Cassie hastily refolded the letter into thirds and tucked it between the layers of cloth inside the box. She noticed her hand shaking as she hurriedly smoothed the fabric over the paper. Cassie had grown up believing that her grandfather was the only man Lydia had ever loved, her first and only boyfriend. But Henry Armstrong’s initials weren’t F.B.

Then there was the handwriting—words strung together frantically, with barely a space between, as if the letter had been written in one furious burst of energy. Henry took his time writing, meticulously tracing the shape of each letter, lifting his pen off the paper after each word before starting the next. His handwriting was as careful and measured as his speech, a far cry from the messy scrawl on the mysterious letter.

But the words were the real tipoff. Henry Armstrong—while he certainly loved his wife—didn’t talk like this. Cassie had never heard Henry tell Lydia he loved her. He acknowledged Lydia’s birthday with generic drugstore birthday cards, signing his name beneath the poem inside. He had to be nagged to add even the shortest greeting to Lydia’s annual Christmas letters. Henry didn’t express himself with words; he showed his love through action, whether it was stroking the head of his lonely young granddaughter or nurturing a tender plant in his beloved greenhouse.

This letter had been written by someone in pain. Someone literally sick with love for Lydia.

The Armstrongs weren’t ones for exchanging family stories over the dinner table; the past was only revisited occasionally, filled as it was with echoes of tragedy and regret. Cassie learned at an early age what was off limits. Her grandparents would talk willingly enough about their first dates, or what life used to be like in Knox Junction before the interstate highway arrived. Once in a while, Lydia would reminisce about the early days of her marriage, and Cassie would get a brief, precious glimpse of her father as a baby or young boy. But questions about Cassie’s parents—who had died when she was five years old, before she’d time to form anything more than impressions of them—were met with awkward silence. The past, she learned, meant pain. And the last thing Cassie wanted was to cause her grandparents any more heartbreak. They’d had enough.

The only safe memories, the only ones Cassie could ask about and get a smile, were the stories of Lydia and Henry’s courtship and marriage. By now, it had taken on the aura of a fairy tale in Cassie’s mind. They’d first met as children, when Lydia’s family moved to town, had their first date at a high school dance and married right after college. Henry, the quiet, steadfast farmer’s son, and Lydia, the artistic doctor’s daughter, might have been an unexpected match; Lydia had hinted that her parents didn’t approve of Henry at first. But love had triumphed in the end, and Lydia and Henry had eloped in France, where Lydia was taking college art courses. Paul, Cassie’s father, was born while they were traveling in Europe, and the young family returned home soon after.

Their brief European adventure over, they settled into their average, all-American lives. For the next fifty years, they had built a thriving business together, established a network of close friends with whom they organized bridge nights and potluck dinners, raised a son and later, a granddaughter. Now, in their seventies, they were local fixtures in town, a much-lauded example of a happy and long-lasting marriage.

Henry and Lydia’s story had made a powerful impact on the young Cassie, who grew up believing in the power of first love. But as she made her way unhappily through high school—where being smart disqualified her from popularity, and her frizzy hair and acne-prone skin only reinforced her brainy image—Cassie began to wonder whether her grandparents’ story was a fairy tale after all, the kind of thing that rarely ever happens in real life.

It wasn’t until college that she met her savior: Cooper Lynch, someone just as socially awkward and grade-obsessed as she was. Cooper’s home life couldn’t have been more different than hers—the middle child of three boys and two girls, he’d been raised in a large, raucous family—but like Cassie, he approached life as an outsider. The only way to stand out from his siblings, he’d decided at an early age, was to be smarter than them, and he’d concentrated on school to the exclusion of almost everything else. Cooper and Cassie had started out as “study buddies,” cramming for finals together late at night in the university library. They’d applied to law schools together and somehow both decided that the University of Chicago was their first choice. And when law school began and they were busier than ever, it seemed natural to find comfort 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. In that way, she felt a certain bond with her grandmother—they were both women who valued comfort over passion. Not the type of women to get swept off their feet by whispered words and grand gestures.

Now Cassie wondered if that was true. Because it seemed that Lydia had once had something more. Why had she run from it? Had something terrible happened to send her back to Henry and the safety he offered? Or had this letter been sent after Lydia was already married?

“Did you find it?”

Cassie jumped at the sound of Lydia’s voice. Find it? How did she know?

Lydia stepped off the bottom of the stairs and walked over to Cassie “So, what do you think?”

The cloth. Lydia was talking about her quilt, not the letter. Cassie realized her hands were still pressed against the top of the plastic storage container.

“Um…” Cassie stammered.

Lydia’s eyes narrowed when she saw where Cassie was standing.

“What are you doing?” she asked quickly.

“Uh, well, I thought there might be some more fabric samples inside.” Cassie stared at Lydia, waiting for her grandmother to ask the question.

Lydia briskly pushed the box to the side of the table, her eyes focused downward. “There’s nothing in there to interest you.”

This was it. Her opening. All Cassie had to do was ask, but she knew it was pointless. If she couldn’t get a straight answer about her own parents’ death, how could she expect Lydia to confess a long-ago love affair?

Lydia walked over to the bolts of cloth leaning against the wall and pulled out a pale pink floral. It was classic Lydia behavior—move right on through an awkward moment and refuse to acknowledge it ever happened. The brief opportunity to ask about the letter had passed.

“This is nice, don’t you think?” Lydia murmured.

Maybe for a six-year-old girl’s room, thought Cassie. “Whatever you think works best,” she said. “I really don’t care.”

She saw the hurt flit across Lydia’s face, saw her shoulders slump inside her hand-knit sweater. Cassie was used to being direct, both in the office and in court. She didn’t have time for subtlety. But she sometimes forgot that Lydia was her grandmother, not a plaintiff.

“I mean, the pink is fine,” Cassie said “Just keep it light and soothing—nothing too bright.”

Lydia nodded and fingered the fabric “Understated.”

“Yeah.”

“I can do understated, believe it or not.” Lydia smiled, and Cassie started to laugh. Understated was not exactly Lydia’s specialty. The quilts that adorned the beds and walls of her house were riotous mixtures of clashing colors and swirling patterns. Some paintings Lydia had done years ago hung in the front hallway, landscapes filled with bright red trees and vibrant purple grass. Lydia’s life might have been drab, but her artwork certainly wasn’t.

As Lydia pulled out the pink fabric and spread it out on her worktable, Cassie’s eyes wandered back to the box that had been pushed aside. The letter itself might be hidden, but its contents had been released. The words still floated through her mind, imprinted on her memory.

Without you I’m lost.

Cassie knew the letter would haunt her until she found out the truth. Lydia—out of loyalty to Henry—would never tell her. But someone else might. Her aunt Nell, Lydia’s sister, had grown up with Lydia and Henry. Nell had witnessed their early years together. Maybe she’d know what had happened to the man who had loved Lydia so deeply.

Chapter 2

Lydia

Lydia Prescott couldn’t remember the first time she met Henry Armstrong. He seemed to have always been there, in the background, waiting for her to notice him. All her life she would wonder how a connection so strong could have started so unremarkably, how their first encounter could have passed without a foreshadowing of the bond that was to come.

Then again, Lydia had blocked out many things during those first months in Knox Junction. The move had passed in a blur. Packing up the house in a flurry of boxes. Mother’s tears as she whispered rebukes to Father about disgracing the family. Father telling Lydia she couldn’t go back to school to say goodbye. Filing behind her parents through cavernous Union Station in Chicago on the way to the train south. Something had gone wrong with Father’s job, something shameful, and now they were starting over. Lydia was eleven, old enough to know not to ask questions. Faced with a family teetering on the edge of disaster, she was determined to help her parents maintain a pretense of happiness. Lydia’s younger sister, Nell, then only eight, didn’t yet possess the mental sensors to pick up their parents’ simmering tension.

“What’s our new house like?” Nell asked, after Mother had settled them in their private train compartment. Lydia took this as a good sign; surely the money couldn’t all be gone if they were still able to travel like this.

“I don’t know,” Mother said in the clipped tone that had become her normal speech pattern “I haven’t seen it.”

“It’s very nice,” said Father “It looks like a farmhouse. Lots of room to play outside.”

“Is there a beach?” Nell asked.

“No,” Mother said.

“It’s in the middle of cornfields,” Lydia explained. “Nowhere near Lake Michigan.”

Nell’s eyes began to water. “But I like the beach,” she whined.

Their old house—the place Lydia still thought of as home, although she knew it would have to be sold—had been only two blocks from the beach. Lydia and Nell had spent the summer digging with shovels, searching for buried treasure. They’d walked the tree-lined streets of Winnetka, the tranquil Chicago suburb that felt like a small town, albeit one where all the residents could afford sprawling brick or wood-frame homes with wraparound porches and separate entrances for the staff in back. Winnetka was where couples moved when they wanted to raise their families somewhere safe and idyllic. Not a place where families suddenly left in disgrace. Lydia’s friends had told her they’d write, but she knew they wouldn’t. Nell was having a harder time realizing that their life there was over.

“Does the house have an attic?” A favorite winter activity had been to rummage through Mother’s old trunks of clothes, playing dress-up.

“I don’t know,” said Mother, staring out the window.

“I don’t think so,” Father said. “But there’s a pretty room I think you’ll like. With pink flowered wallpaper.”

“I don’t want pink!” Nell began to wail “I want blue!”

Lydia reached around her sister’s shoulders and squeezed tight. “I’ll take the pink room if you want,” she said. She watched her parents for their reaction. True to form, Mother hardly paid attention and Father gave her an approving smile.

Still, brave as Lydia tried to be, she couldn’t hide her disappointment when the train pulled into Knox Junction, her new hometown. It was a creation of the railroads, a small gathering of buildings that sprang up at the intersection of the lines running north to Chicago and west to Des Moines. It had begun with a hotel, expanded to a few shops and houses, but never developed into anything more than a minor transportation center in the midst of farmland. Knox Junction might call itself a town, but there was only one paved road, and tractors outnumbered cars.

Lydia watched Mother’s face crumple with disappointment as they slowed down at the station. She forced the muscles around her mouth to prop up her lips in an approximation of a smile.

“We’re home, aren’t we, Father?” Lydia said.

Father rubbed his hand over the top of her head. If hiding her fear and anger would keep her family together, if pretending happiness could somehow erase the shame hovering over them like a fog, Lydia was determined to put up a brave front.

“Yes,” said Father. “Home.”

The house, while smaller than the one they’d had in Winnetka, wasn’t nearly as bad as Lydia had feared. For Knox Junction, it was positively palatial: four bedrooms, a deep porch lined with white columns, an enormous kitchen with walk-in pantry. Even Mother nodded approvingly. Living in such a home seemed to bode well. Surely the family of the town’s new doctor, living in one of the finest houses in town, would be greeted with excitement and respect?

Lydia’s hopes of being embraced by Knox Junction were soon shattered. On her first day of school, she could feel the eyes of her classmates focus on her with confusion rather than welcome. Had Henry been the only one to look at her as more than a suspicious outsider? He must have been there, in that room, but she couldn’t remember him. To Lydia, all those faces blended together, a blank wall she could never penetrate. Cheery Nell had an easier time of it. Within a few weeks she was walking home from school chattering about the funny rag dolls she’d played with at recess.

But for Lydia, school was a disaster. In her first school year at Knox Junction, she made exactly one friend, Melanie Dixon, whose parents ran the town’s hotel. Being raised among travelers had broadened Melanie’s outlook. She was the only classmate who treated Lydia as a normal person, rather than an interloper.

Lydia had developed a habit of reading during recess, a routine that shielded her from the fact that the other girls ignored her, while simultaneously insuring a reputation as stuck-up and proud.

The book that day was Little Women. Lydia had only gotten through the second chapter when she saw Melanie’s face peering at her over the top.

“Do you like to sew?” she asked.

The question was so unexpected, Lydia didn’t know how to respond. Was Melanie trying to make some connection between sewing and the book? Was this a test, something she’d be teased about later?

Lydia shrugged. “I’m not very good,” she said.

“I could teach you if you want,” Melanie said. “But, you see, I thought I’d make something for the social, and if you want some help with your dress…”

“The social?” Lydia asked.

“Don’t you know? We always have one on a Friday afternoon in June, to celebrate the end of the school year. We don’t have dates, exactly, but there’s dancing with the boys.” Melanie smiled in anticipation, and her round cheeks and kind dark eyes were such a welcome sight that Lydia smiled back.

“Oh, I don’t know if that’s the sort of thing I’d do….” she began, then stopped herself. She heard how her own words sounded the second they flew out of her mouth—“not the sort of thing I’d do”—and she realized that distancing herself to be protected from rejection could only lead to more rejection.

“That is, I’m not a very good dancer,” Lydia said. “But I’d be happy to help you with your dress, if you want.”

“Can you do embroidery? There’s a darling pattern I’d like to put along the bodice.”

Lydia nodded. “That sounds like fun. Could you show me how?” Lydia’s previous sewing experience had been strictly practical—mending holes and finishing hems—and Mother never failed to criticize her crooked seams and uneven stitches. But Lydia was willing to risk bloody fingers if it meant having a friend.

The friendship that blossomed between the two girls was rooted in pity (on Melanie’s part) and gratitude (on Lydia’s). But lasting friendships have been built on shakier ground, and gradually Melanie softened Lydia’s wariness. Lydia absorbed Melanie’s passion for sewing, and Melanie marveled over her ability to sketch a dress pattern. Lydia had never thought much about her talent for art. She’d been drawing and painting as long as she could remember. But through Melanie’s admiring eyes she began to see her way with shapes and color as something special. Her own particular gift.

But encouraging Lydia’s love of art was only one of the ways Melanie changed Lydia’s life. The other had to do with Henry Armstrong.

It was a week or so before the social, an event Lydia had grudgingly agreed to attend. The future had seemed especially precarious then, in the spring of 1942. Adults talked worriedly about Pearl Harbor and France and the draft. A sense of unease had penetrated even isolated Knox Junction, as boys from the surrounding farms talked about joining up and the men gathered at the general store talked ominously of gasoline rations. The glares between Mother and Father continued to make Lydia’s home a battlefront.

The social would at least be a distraction from Lydia’s daily routine, although she dreaded spending the afternoon as a wallflower. She’d secretly experimented with different hairstyles in the bathroom mirror at home, taking out her pigtails and attempting to brush her thick, chestnut-brown hair into glamorous waves. But once she’d achieved the desired effect—her dark brown eyes, framed by long lashes, peeking around the swirls of hair—she could tell it wasn’t enough. Her thin lips and narrow nose accentuated the suspicious gaze with which she greeted the world. She would never be pretty enough to make boys overlook her schoolmarm reputation.

“Of course someone will ask you to dance!” Melanie declared when Lydia threatened once again not to go.

“Who? Lyle Shea?” Lydia threw out the name of a boy who was best known for bragging about his hogs. Lydia doubted he’d ever read anything other than the Farmers’ Almanac.

“Oh, I know someone who’s sweet on you,” said Melanie with a teasing grin.

“Who?”

“Henry Armstrong.”

Lydia knew who he was by then, but not much more. Henry. Slim, wiry, with lightly freckled cheeks and thick blond hair that stuck up in a cowlick on the back of his head. Henry, who sat in the back of the classroom and never spoke. A farmer’s son who disappeared for a week or two in April to help with the planting. Indistinguishable from all the rest of them—or so Lydia thought.

“Henry? What makes you say that?” she asked Melanie.

“The way I’ve seen him stare at you,” Melanie said. “He looks at you more than any other girl.”

“Did he say something?”

“No. But you know how boys are,” Melanie said with a wise nod. Lydia wondered about her friend’s qualifications as an expert in male behavior. As far as she could tell, Melanie’s interactions with boys consisted of fluttering her eyelashes, giggling and not much else. Still, this news about Henry was intriguing. Not that she cared about him, particularly; she hardly knew him. But the idea that anyone might be paying attention to her was encouraging.

Despite Melanie’s promising news, the social itself went as badly as Lydia imagined it would. The boys lined up against one wall, the girls against another, and a good half hour passed before anyone dared cross to the middle of the room. Eventually, a few awkward pairings stomped across the floor, under the watchful eyes of parental chaperones. Melanie even danced with Lyle Shea, rolling her eyes behind his back for Lydia’s benefit. Lydia remained with her back pressed against the wall, despite Melanie’s whispered attempts to find her a partner when she thought Lydia wasn’t listening.

Henry Armstrong wasn’t there.

Unable to bear the humiliation any longer, Lydia finally strode outside, wincing at the sun hovering over the horizon. She saw Mrs. Glover, the woman who ran the general store and acted as local postmistress, sweeping up the store’s front porch before closing. Lydia dashed across the street.

“Mrs. Glover,” she called out. “I don’t suppose you received a package for me, did you?”

Mrs. Glover leaned against the broom with a weary expression that signaled her lack of enthusiasm at being the local representative of the U.S. Postal Service.

“Well, now, I might have.”

Even Mrs. Glover’s sourness couldn’t dispel Lydia’s excitement. “May I come in and get it, please?”

The woman sighed heavily. “I was about to close up, but I suppose if you’re quick about it…”

Lydia raced inside and ran behind the counter where Mrs. Glover piled oversize mail. The box was toward the bottom—how long had it been sitting there? Her name was clearly marked, along with her address. But the Knox Junction postal service did not include home delivery. It was up to each family to appear up at Mrs. Glover’s to claim their boxes and envelopes—when she felt like retrieving them.

“Thank you!” Lydia called as she ran down the steps. She couldn’t wait until she got home to open it. Instead, she walked quickly to the porch swings at the Knox Junction Hotel, sat down and tore open the packaging. Nestled inside the box was the latest selection from the Book-of-the-Month Club. The subscription had been a gift from Father on her last birthday. Since Knox Junction had no public library, it was her one connection to the outside world. Each new delivery felt like Christmas.

She was about to pull the book out of the box when she noticed a shadow hovering over her. She glanced up and locked eyes with Henry Armstrong.

For a moment, they stared at each other in silence. His hair had been flattened with pomade, and he was wearing a stiffly pressed white shirt. His fingers twitched as they moved in and out of his pockets.

“Uh, is the, uh, social over, then?”

“I’m not sure,” Lydia said. “I left early.”

Henry looked down at his shoes, while Lydia smoothed the paper wrapped around her book. Those two sentences were more words than they’d exchanged during the entire school year. And that could’ve been the end of it—Henry might have said thank you, and turned toward the school, and Lydia might have walked home and delved into her book and never given Henry another thought.

But something about the package in Lydia’s lap caught Henry’s attention.

“Book-of-the-Month Club?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Lydia, surprised.

“My mother used to get those.”

“Oh?”

“Well, she hasn’t for a while now. But she kept all her old ones. I read them when I get the chance.”

Somehow, in that moment, with hardly anything being said, everything was said. Henry read books, and his mother used to read books, but something had happened and there was no money for indulgences such as Book-of-the-Month Club, so Henry had to work as hard as everyone else, but sometimes, at night when he wasn’t too exhausted, he would read and escape into other worlds. Just like Lydia.

“What’s your favorite?” Lydia asked.

Henry shrugged and shifted his weight from side to side. “I dunno,” he said. “There was one I read not too long ago—Lost Horizon. That was good.”

Lydia smiled. “I read that one, too. Shangri-La. I love books that make you feel you’ve gone somewhere else.”

“Away from Knox Junction?”

“I don’t mean—It’s not that I don’t like it here…” She watched as Henry’s face was transformed by a smile, his clear blue eyes twinkling at her. He looked like a little boy, delighted by a new discovery. Lydia couldn’t help smiling back.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “Nothing interesting ever happens around here.”

“Well, there’s the social.” Lydia glanced up at him. “I don’t want to keep you, if you were going over there.”

Henry shook his head. “I’m not much of a dancer,” he said. “How ’bout you?”

Lydia laughed. “I’m terrible.”

And then Lydia was no longer conscious of talking to a boy—a boy who might actually have some kind of interest in her, no less. She just knew that she wanted the conversation to continue, because there was something about him that made her comfortable. When Lydia offered to show Henry her new book, she knew he’d sit down next to her.

“You know, if you like to read, we’ve got heaps of books,” Lydia said as Henry settled on the swing. “I’d be happy to lend you some.”

“Thank you.” His obvious delight at her offer was enough to start a warm rush in Lydia’s stomach. Years later, she realized it was the first hint of the feeling that would one day turn to love.

The war affected Knox Junction only gradually at first. A few local boys joined up, including Henry’s older brother, Timothy. Lydia’s mother had to bring a ration book whenever she wanted to buy sugar or coffee. For Lydia’s family, however, the war brought redemption. A few doctors from neighboring towns signed up with the medical corps, leaving her father as the sole physician for miles around. Now, rather than struggling to build a practice, he found that demand for his services had soared. Before the family’s abrupt departure from Chicago, Lydia had overheard snippets of her parents’ conversations, the contemptuous accusations her mother had flung at him regarding “that poor Miller woman.” Lydia knew that one of Father’s patients had died, and that death had something to do with their disgrace. She’d wondered if Father would ever practice medicine again.

Now that the war had tripled his business, Lydia watched her father revert to the confident physician he had once been. The more patients he treated, the more his shoulders straightened, and the more Lydia heard the sound of whistling in the morning. He made fewer trips to the liquor cabinet after dinner. No longer was Lydia awakened by the sound of harsh voices from her parents’ room.

After school let out for the summer, Mother took Lydia and Nell north to Wisconsin, to Grandmother’s vacation house on Lake Geneva. Mother claimed it would be good for the girls’ health—“The air here is oppressive. I can’t bear it”—but Father’s health seemed less of a concern, as he stayed behind.

To one of Grandmother’s elderly neighbors, Mother explained the move to Knox Junction as a patriotic duty. “We all must make our sacrifices,” she said. “They don’t have nearly enough doctors there, and with the war on, David is needed more than ever.

“It’s a simpler life,” Mother told one of her childhood friends, who lived in a three-story mansion on Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. “So much better for the children.”

Whether these polite society ladies believed Mother’s explanations or merely pitied her, the result was the same. She was welcomed back into the world where she’d grown up, a world of garden parties and croquet matches and leisurely rides on family sailboats. A world Lydia had once believed she was part of. But now she saw it as a brief, idyllic escape. Come September, she’d be back in Knox Junction. That had become her real life.

Lydia had given Henry the address in Lake Geneva on their last day of school, not expecting anything to come of it. But to her great surprise, he did write. And although his letters were short, to the point and distinctly lacking in poetry, she ripped each one open eagerly.

Dear Lydia,

How are things up there? Have you gone swimming in the lake? The only place I’ve ever gone swimming was the water hole behind our barn. It’s all dried up now. It’s scorching hot here. How’s the weather?

Her letters back were chattier, but similarly superficial:

The women here go to great lengths to track down nylons. They all whisper about who can get them as if they’re planning a bank robbery. But I don’t imagine you’re too interested in ladies’ fashions. Sorry I don’t have anything more interesting to write about—it’s a rather dull routine here. A morning walk, lunch out, afternoon swim, tea with friends of my grandmother’s, followed by dinner with someone even more boring. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here younger than forty. It actually makes me look forward to high school. Although, I still can’t quite believe it—high school! What do you think it will be like?

Knox Junction was too small to support a high school, so students took a half-hour bus ride to nearby Fentonville. During the first few weeks of school, the bus seating settled into a pattern that remained for the rest of the school year. Lydia and Melanie would board the bus first, in town. Later along the route, Henry would get on and sit in the row in front of them. He’d stretch his long legs out along the seat and turn sideways toward the girls, nodding his head once. Sometimes he’d lean back against the window and drift off to sleep. Other days he would halfheartedly respond as Melanie attempted to drag him into conversation.

“What do you think of those Fentonville girls, Henry?” Melanie asked one morning toward the beginning of their freshman year. She flashed Lydia a meaningful glance.

“I dunno,” he said.

“Some of them act like big-city girls, don’t you think?”

Henry shrugged. “Maybe.”

Melanie shook her head, annoyed. She told Lydia later, “Doesn’t Henry look like a big scarecrow?” A growth spurt had left Henry awkwardly tall and skinny; he walked as if he was still learning to work his new arms and legs.

“Did you see him this morning, with his hair all pointed up?” Melanie giggled. “It’s just like straw!”

To the girls at Fentonville, his lanky body, uneasy posture and obviously handed-down, too-short trousers marked him as a poor prospect. Melanie had stopped teasing Lydia about him. High school offered all sorts of new potential beaus—Henry Armstrong was old news.

“He’s not that bad,” protested Lydia. But when he wore overalls to school—which he did far too often—he did look like a country bumpkin. Exactly the sort of person the ladies at Lake Geneva would disapprove of.

Without ever discussing it, Lydia and Henry kept their interaction at school to a minimum. But somehow they found moments to talk away from school, Sunday afternoons when they’d stroll along the wide road out of town, searching for a perfect vista for Lydia to sketch. They talked about books, about his brother’s letters from overseas, about Chicago, which Henry had never visited. There were no nervous attempts to grab Lydia’s hand or stuttering declarations of feelings. They were simply friends. And Lydia never felt she needed anything more.

By their sophomore year, Lydia and Henry had expanded their friendship to help navigate the perils of high school. He asked her to the homecoming dance, saving her from the embarrassment of not being asked by anyone else. They began doing homework together at her house. Lydia’s father would sometimes give Henry a ride home in his car, one of the few in town that received ample gas rations.

They might have continued that way for years, neither of them breaking the rhythm of companionship. But the war shattered their comfortable routine.

It was the spring of 1944. Henry didn’t board the bus one morning, and he wasn’t in math class at the start of the day. Mr. Andrews called roll and noticed that Henry was absent.

“Has anyone seen Henry Armstrong?” he asked.

“He wasn’t on the bus,” Melanie offered.

“That’s an unexcused absence,” Mr. Andrews said, marking it down in his book.

Even one unexcused absence was unusual for someone as conscientious as Henry, and when he wasn’t at school the next day, Lydia began to worry. She wondered whether she’d be brave enough to telephone his house later. She’d only met his parents once, when they came to the school’s annual concert. They were even more soft-spoken than Henry, nodding silently when Henry introduced them. Lydia wondered if they’d remember who she was.

“Um, Mr. Andrews?” George Foster, known as one of the loudest boys in the school, raised his hand.

“Yes, George?”

“My mother heard something about the Armstrongs. I don’t know if I…” George seemed unsure, a rarity for him.

“Please come up,” said Mr. Andrews. George whispered in his ear. Lydia, from the front row, heard the name of Reverend McDeal, the minister at Knox Junction’s only church.

Mr. Andrews was quiet for a moment, gazing down at the floor. “Thank you, George,” he said finally. “Take your seat.”

Lydia waited for an announcement, but Mr. Andrews continued with roll call and then began reviewing the previous night’s homework. Lydia felt her stomach tense with worry. If Reverend McDeal had been called, someone in the house must be very sick. Was it Henry’s mother or father? Could it be Henry himself?

By lunchtime, Lydia couldn’t stand the suspense anymore. She lingered beside the table where George and his fellow baseball team members sat, drumming up the courage to speak.

“What are you doing here?” asked one of the older boys, a junior or senior.

“I, uh…George?” Lydia’s voice was trembling. “Do you have a minute?”

George was obviously shocked at being approached by his class’s designated bookworm. He grinned at the other boys as he stood up, enjoying his moment in the spotlight. Lydia motioned him to follow, and she led him to a far corner of the lunchroom, where they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Today, in Mr. Andrews’s class, you said something about the Armstrongs.”

George’s self-satisfied expression gave way to wariness.

“Yeah.”

“Is something wrong with Henry?”

George looked at her, his face uncharacteristically blank.

“Please,” Lydia begged.

“Well, I guess everyone’s going to hear about it anyway. It’s not Henry, it’s his brother. Killed in action.”

A heavy chill settled over Lydia’s body, making her feel as if she were encased in ice. Timothy. Henry’s only sibling, the older brother he idolized. The person Henry’s father was training to take over the farm. His mother’s pride and joy.

Lydia moved through the rest of the day in a haze, sick whenever she thought of Henry and what he must be going through. She was desperate to talk to him, but terrified at the idea of reaching out. She couldn’t possibly call the house. What if his mother answered the phone, hysterical? What would she say? Stopping by for a visit was out of the question. Seeing the Armstrongs in person, devastated by the news, would be unbearable.

Shortly after returning home from school, Lydia told her mother she was going out to draw. She’d lose herself in something to take her mind away from what had happened. Spring in northern Illinois could shift from freezing to broiling within twenty-four hours, but that afternoon there was still a chill in the air. She tossed a scarf around her neck and pulled on her gloves, tucking her sketch pad under one arm and putting a small box of pastels in her pocket.

She set off down the main road out of town, which led past Henry’s farm. She wasn’t planning on going to the house, not exactly. But she needed to be closer to him, even if he didn’t see her or know she was there. If the connection between them was so strong that his grief affected her physically, maybe he’d sense her nearness and draw some small comfort from it.

The farmhouse where Henry lived lay at the end of a dirt track off the main road. Lydia stopped at the turnoff and looked toward the house. The only vehicle parked in front was Henry’s father’s truck. No visitors.

She was just trying to decide whether to turn back or keep walking, when she noticed a movement in some trees to her right. She clutched her sketch pad, struggling to come up with an excuse for why she might have chosen this particular spot to draw. Then she saw a glimpse of light hair through the branches. It was Henry.

Lydia’s fear about what to say instantly vanished. She dropped her paper and raced over the grass, calling his name. His body stiffened when he heard her voice. As she approached, and saw his face drawn with despair, his eyes rimmed with red, she knew that words wouldn’t be enough. She flung herself against him and hugged tight, murmuring, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

His thin frame felt surprisingly solid to her—what little substance he had was all wiry muscle and bone. One hand rested gently on her shoulder, the other tentatively patted her back.

“You heard,” he said quietly, the words muffled by their embrace.

“Yes,” Lydia said. “All day, I’ve been so worried. I can’t imagine what it’s been like.”

She felt him shudder as he tried to speak. She kept her eyes pressed shut, afraid to see him in such pain.

“It’s been awful,” he whispered. “My Ma…I don’t know what’s going to happen to her. It’s like she’s dead, too. Pop’s doing his best, but…”

Lydia 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 Lowell—” the firm’s managing partner “—and after that he was putting through a lot of calls to the other senior partners. And here’s the weirdest part. Guess who else called? Milton Greiber from Lofton & Treadwell.”

Lofton & Treadwell. The firm’s biggest competitor in health-care law.

“Something’s definitely up,” Cassie said.

“Listen, you didn’t hear this from me,” said Marie.

Cassie nodded. “I just want to protect myself, you know, in case.” Marie had once told Cassie she was the only lawyer at the firm who treated her as a friend rather than a servant. Cassie hadn’t planned to make an ally of Marie—she genuinely liked her—but she saw now that this personal connection was paying off. She’d just gotten a heads-up on some potentially life-altering news.

Two rival law firms talking could mean only one thing: merger. And mergers meant consolidation, which meant layoffs.

Was her job in jeopardy?

Cassie’s computer pinged again—a message from Cooper.

Can you get away tonight? Got us a 7 pm meeting at the Drake Hotel to discuss the reception. Also, got a great story about Jess and Pedro when you need a laugh. I’ll be in the office between 2 and 3 if you want to talk.

Cassie shook her head in irritation. She didn’t have time to discuss the latest interoffice-romance scandal at Cooper’s office, let alone wedding reception venues. Her job—the center of her life, her identity—might be in jeopardy. That had to be her top priority.

She typed a quick response:

No can do tonight. Sorry. Nightmare at work as usual. Can you go it alone?

She pressed Send, then thought about how to respond to Jeffrey. Asking for a summary of her work might be a good sign. Maybe it meant he was trying to protect her job. They had a friendly working relationship, but he was still the boss. Would he tell her the truth if she asked?

Ping. Another e-mail from Jeffrey arrived in her in box.

Go what alone? If you can’t get me the summary by tonight, try for tomorrow a. m.

p. s. Nightmares at work are no excuse. Part of the job.

Cassie frantically clicked on her sent mail folder. Sure enough, the response she’d intended for Cooper had gone to Jeffrey instead. Great. Just when she was supposed to be burnishing her professional reputation, she’d sent a personal message to her boss.

Quickly, she responded to Jeffrey, double-checking the return address carefully.

My mistake. Meant to send that message to Cooper explaining why I’d be spending my evening at work yet again. As you said, nightmares are business as usual. Will be happy to get you that work summary by the end of the day. No problem.

It was, in fact, a huge problem. How was she supposed to work on this self-promoting document when she had back-to-back meetings scheduled well past five? She’d hoped to take a half-hour lunch break to visit a nearby bridal salon, but that plan was shot now. All so she could justify keeping a job she already had.

Cassie dialed Cooper’s cell phone. It went immediately to voice mail.

“Hey there,” Cassie said. “Got your e-mail. I’m so sorry, but I can’t make it to the Drake today. Horrible day at work, and something big is up—I’ll tell you later, but I don’t think it’s good. Anyway, I’ve got to stay late and prove myself. Can you go to the meeting anyway? You can tell me all about it tonight. Thanks.”

She hung up, then considered calling back and saying something nice. Didn’t most women end conversations with their fiancés by saying, “I love you” or, “Can’t wait to see you”? But Cassie was in business mode and it simply hadn’t occurred to her.

She typed a quick message.

Just left you a voice mail. Forgot to say I love you. See you later.

Cassie hit Send and watched the words I love you disappear from her screen. She tried to remember the last time she’d said them out loud.

Arriving home that night around ten, Cassie kept running certain images through her mind—the way two of the firm’s partners had stopped talking when she’d walked by the front desk to pick up a package. Jeffrey’s over-casual thanks when she’d delivered a ten-page summary of her professional accomplishments. The sight of Lowell, the firm’s managing partner, at the photocopy machines, doing work that was usually delegated to the lowliest paralegals.

Still, as Cassie strolled through the sleek, unfurnished lobby of her condo building, she was determined to leave work at the office for once. Talk to Cooper, try to work up some enthusiasm for the wedding planning that he’d taken on alone. They hadn’t even picked a date yet, but the big venues filled up a year or more in advance, so they’d decided to start looking. But so far Cooper had been the only one to do anything.

Cassie opened the door to the apartment and was greeted by darkness. Walking down the hall, she came to the living room, lit by a small table lamp. Had Cooper gone back to the office after his meeting at the Drake? It wouldn’t be the first time. But no—she’d spotted his briefcase sitting by the front door, where he usually kept it. His wallet was on the front hall table.

Cassie glanced toward the bedroom and saw that the door was closed. A note was taped to the front.

Sorry I missed you. Have to get up at 5 a.m. for flight to London, so I went to bed early. Leave a note if you want me to wake you up before I go. Otherwise, see you Saturday.

The London trip. She’d forgotten all about it. It was the reason he’d scheduled the Drake tour for tonight, because it was the only time he’d have available until the following week. And she’d completely forgotten.

Leave a note if you want me to wake you up.

It seemed fitting, given that was how they seemed to communicate these days.

Cassie walked back down the hall to the living room, took off her shoes and tossed them on the floor. Another piece of paper was sitting in front of the answering machine.

Aunt Nell called. Said you can call her late.

Was ten o’clock too late for a seventysomething woman? Cassie wasn’t sure. But she knew she couldn’t sleep, so it was worth a try.

Aunt Nell picked up the phone on the second ring, her voice as cheery as if it were midafternoon.

“Hello?”

“Aunt Nell, it’s Cassie. Am I calling too late?”

“’Course not. I make a point of not going to bed before midnight. Don’t want to become a boring old lady.”

“I don’t think anyone will ever say that about you,” Cassie said.

Nell’s hearty laugh echoed through the receiver. Lydia might see her sister as flighty and unpredictable, but Nell clearly enjoyed life. Cassie found herself wishing she’d taken more time to get to know her. What must it be like to go through life with happiness as your default setting?

“I guess congratulations are in order,” Nell said. “When’s the big day?”

“We’re still working on that,” Cassie said. “You know how it is—work schedules. It’s really hard to find a time that’s good for both of us.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever had a real work schedule in my life!” Nell said. “I do admire you, though. Lydia’s always bursting with pride when she talks about you.”

“Listen, I was actually calling about Grandma,” Cassie said, anxious to get to the point before she lost her nerve. “A weird thing happened yesterday. I was at her house for lunch, and I went to the basement to look at some fabric—well, the background isn’t really important, but I found this letter. A love letter.”

“Hmm.”

“The thing is, I don’t think my grandfather wrote it.”

“Then who was it from?” Nell asked.

“I don’t know. Someone with the initials F.B.”

Cassie waited in silence for a moment.

“Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Nell said. “Do you know when it was written?”

“No, there’s no date. Could it be someone in Knox Junction, someone she knew when she was younger?”

“As far as I know, she didn’t date anyone else before marrying Henry,” Nell said. “And I don’t see…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Well, from everything I’ve seen and heard, Henry is the love of my sister’s life. I don’t use that term lightly. Believe me, I thought I was in love many, many times, and most every time it ended in disaster. I’m sure Lydia’s taken great pleasure in telling you about all my mistakes!” Nell laughed, but Cassie heard the hurt lurking behind it, the dig at an older sister who would never stop judging her.

“But Lydia and Henry—they were the golden couple,” Nell continued. “The ones you knew would get married and live happily ever after. I never suspected there was anyone else.”

“I know,” Cassie said. “That’s why I’m so confused. I’m not sure why—this letter really shook me up.”

“Have you asked Lydia about it?”

“Well, I tried to. Sort of. I think she guessed I found it, and then she acted all distant and changed the subject. You know how she gets.”

“Not much for sharing her feelings?” said Nell. “I remember dragging her to a consciousness-raising retreat sometime in ’71, ’72. A complete disaster—but I’ll tell you about that another time.”

“This F.B.,” Cassie told her, “whoever he was, said something about Lydia creating a new life for herself and moving on. So I took that to be a reference to her maybe getting married.”

“Unless she was a truly gifted actress, I don’t see how she could’ve juggled Henry and someone else,” said Nell. “They started dating when she was sixteen or so and as far as I could see, they were made for each other. But I suppose you already know the whole story.”

“The basics,” Cassie said. The way Lydia told it, it was as if she’d met Henry, connected instantly and decided to get married—case closed. Was the truth more complicated?

“They started dating in high school, right?” Cassie asked.

“I don’t know exactly when,” Nell said. “I was three years younger, so Lydia never confided in me. From what I understand, they were friends first. Lydia didn’t know too many people, you see. She always kept to herself. When we first moved to Knox Junction, I think she was very unhappy. All of us were. But being younger, I suppose I adjusted faster. I made friends far more easily than Lydia.”

“Why did your father move there?” Cassie asked. “It seems like a strange transition, to go from an upscale suburb like Winnetka to a small farm town.”

“It had to do with my father’s job.” Nell paused. “Something had gone wrong in Winnetka, although I couldn’t tell you what. Mother was furious at Father, that was obvious, but she’d never discuss it with us. She’d very set ideas about what was proper. It’s no wonder I rebelled!”

“So,” Cassie went on, “you were saying Grandma kept to herself after the move.”

“Yes. She was such a loner, always reading or drawing or painting. She lived in her head, and there weren’t many people like that in Knox Junction. One was expected to be hearty and love the land and come from good farmer stock. The children at school thought she was strange, the way she’d spend recess with her nose in a book.

“But for some reason, Henry found Lydia intriguing. Maybe because she was so different from everyone else. By Lydia’s sophomore or junior year he’d started coming ’round the house. Lydia never invited guests over—her only friend, as far as I can recall, was a girl named Melanie. Sweet but fairly stupid, if I may be brutally honest. So for her to bring a boy over—I can’t even explain how shocking that was. Boys and girls just weren’t friends the way they are now, you see. If a girl brought a boy home, it meant something.”

“Could she have dated someone else, too?” Cassie asked.

“I can’t imagine there was any other boy in that school who would’ve appreciated her, let alone fallen madly in love with her,” Nell said. “And then, with my parents or me always chaperoning, I don’t see how she would have found the opportunity.”

“You spent a lot of time with them?”

“Oh, yes,” said Nell. “It was understood that Lydia and Henry should never be in the house alone. I’d sit with them at the dining table after school, and we’d all do homework together. Or they’d sit on the front porch while I helped Mother in the front garden. They were often together, but it was never what you’d call romantic. Not in the stereotypical sense.”

“No holding hands on the porch swing?”

“Definitely not,” Nell said with a laugh. “Although now that you mention it—Hmm, I’m remembering something I haven’t thought of in years. There was this one afternoon…must’ve been spring, because Mother’s flowers were all blooming and Lydia was painting them. We spent the summers up in Lake Geneva with Mother’s family, so it couldn’t have been much later than early June. The weather was lovely, and Lydia had set up her easel on the front porch. She was sitting on a wicker love seat and Henry sat next to her, watching her work. I was sprawled out on the steps, reading Nancy Drew—I remember being obsessed with those books at that age, twelve or thirteen.

“It was peaceful, the three of us there. What struck me was the way Henry sat with Lydia. He didn’t talk, or interrupt her work, or try to make conversation to cover up the silence. So many boys in that town—well, they were loud. Loved to draw attention to themselves. But Henry was content to sit and watch Lydia for hours. At the time, I wondered how he could stand doing something so boring. It was only years later that I realized I’d witnessed real love—he was content to share whatever made her happy. I think I’ve been searching for that most of my life.”

Cassie had always told herself the bond she had with Cooper was based on their shared passion for the law and hard work. But now she saw the difference—she and Cooper liked to do the same things but rarely did them together. Their work kept them in separate orbits. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Cooper had sat together for hours, sharing silent moments of companionship. Had they ever?

“It was all very small-town America,” Nell said. “Henry would pick up Lydia for a school dance. Bring her flowers or a corsage. They always went with friends, of course—Mother would never have let Lydia drive around with Henry alone.”

“Sounds like your parents were very strict.”

“No more so than any other parents in town,” Nell said. “It just wasn’t done for a girl to spend time alone with a boy, dating or not. Perhaps especially if they were dating. And then, because it was Henry, they were even more careful.”

“Why?” Cassie asked. Surely most parents would see a nice boy like Henry as a dream companion for their daughter.

“Oh, they couldn’t stand him!”

“Really? Grandma never told me that.”

“Maybe she’s glossed it over in her mind. But I remember it all well enough. Father—well, he might not have cared so much. But Mother would mutter under her breath in the kitchen, ‘I see our friend is back.’ Lydia would only refer to Henry as her ‘friend,’ you see, never boyfriend. But Mother knew. She could see the look in his eyes when he was around Lydia. I liked him—he was always kind to me. And then, I always felt rather sorry for him, with what his family went through.”

“You mean his brother?” Cassie asked. She knew her grandfather’s older brother had died in World War II. His name was carved on a war memorial outside the Knox Junction library, along with those of several other local men who’d been killed in action.

“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 a small but well-regarded women’s college in Ohio; Father a medical degree. They expected both their daughters to go on to higher education, even if—as in Mother’s case—it was only seen as an opportunity to meet eligible, ambitious young men. College meant a ticket out of Knox Junction. But as the time to submit applications came closer, Lydia became paralyzed with indecision.

Mother took charge, in her usual way, writing to request applications from Wellesley and Smith. Meanwhile, Henry had his own assumption about where Lydia would go, as he casually revealed one day at school.

They were sitting in their regular spot in the high school cafeteria, the same place they always sat and ate their bag lunches, in a corner near the window overlooking the football field. Sometimes classmates would join them, but more often they ate alone, their close connection blocking others out.

“How did your parents take it?” Lydia asked him. Henry had already sent in his paperwork for the agriculture program at the University of Illinois, a huge milestone for him, given that no one else in his family had gone to college.

Henry shook his head. “Not well. You know how Pop is about the farm.” Lydia didn’t really know, not firsthand. In their years of dating she’d only met Henry’s father a few times and had never been invited to the house. Henry’s home was no doubt smaller and shabbier than hers, but Lydia suspected that wasn’t the reason he kept her away. More likely it was his mother, who had become a recluse in the two years since Timothy’s death.

“I told him the classes would teach me how to make the farm more efficient,” Henry said, “but he won’t listen.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Go anyway. Pay my own tuition. That’s why I’m sticking with U of I. It won’t cost that much. I can get a job on weekends.”

Hovering unspoken between them was the knowledge that Lydia’s college choices were not restricted by price. She could go anywhere she wanted.

“If I can save up enough, I want to get a car,” Henry said. “That way we could drive back and forth together. That would be great, wouldn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Lydia asked.

“When we leave for school, or during Christmas vacation. We could come home together. No more sitting around waiting for the train.”

He assumed she was going to U of I, too. Of course. He had made the decision for both of them.

Lydia tried to find words that wouldn’t hurt him. But it wasn’t the right time or place—a crowded cafeteria at lunchtime wasn’t the ideal spot for a heart-to-heart conversation. Besides, she told herself, she hadn’t made up her mind yet. She very well might decide to go to U of I. So she simply reached across the table and put her hand over Henry’s. “I wouldn’t worry about a car just yet,” she said. “The train’s fine by me.”

Henry blushed, his mouth twisting into a shy smile. They were careful not to show affection in school, always conscious of being watched and gossiped about. To classmates who didn’t know they were dating, they could have been mistaken for brother and sister, so casual were their interactions. This clasping of hands was the first time they’d openly expressed any physical affection at school. The fact that the first move had been Lydia’s made it all the more surprising.

Away from curious eyes, it was another matter. On those very rare occasions when they found themselves alone—walking down a back road in search of a landscape for Lydia to sketch, or sitting in the deserted school library in the late afternoon—they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Still, they never proceeded further than kissing or holding hands. The ground rules were understood. Lydia was a good girl, Henry was a good boy, and any exploring underneath clothes was strictly off limits.

But lately they’d been bending the rules. It started off with accidents that weren’t quite accidents—Lydia pulling her lips away from Henry’s and moving them toward the spot where his shirt strained open above his top button. Henry’s hand brushing against the tight fabric of Lydia’s sweater, fleetingly touching her breasts. If they were to be at college together, living under far less supervision, Lydia wondered if these same unspoken boundaries would hold. Would they be tempted to go further? Because when she was pressed up against Henry, kissing him in a shadowy corner of a high school hallway, she wanted to go further. And she was frightened of what would happen if she got the chance.

“I put the Wellesley information on your bed,” Mother said at dinner that night.

“All right.” Lydia was less than enthusiastic.

“Have you been reading the brochures? Chosen a favorite?”

Lydia shook her head. “I’m still thinking.” Then, looking straight at her parents to gauge their reaction, she added, “It would cost a lot less money if I went to the University of Illinois.”

Mother’s fingers gripped her fork tightly. “I didn’t know you were considering it.”

“They say it’s a fine school,” Father said.

Mother kept her eyes focused on her plate. “Is that where Henry will be going?”

“I think so,” Lydia said.

A silence settled over the table. The only sound was of forks and knives gently clinking against the china plates. Mother wouldn’t look at Lydia.

“Of course, I’d hate to see you waste your potential,” Mother said. “A girl like you, who could go anywhere.”

“Shouldn’t you go the same place as Henry?” Nell put in from across the table. “You are getting married, right?”

Lydia shot her younger sister a furious glare. That was typical of Nell, drawing attention to herself by making a dramatic pronouncement.

Mother’s head snapped around toward Lydia. “What?” she demanded. “Have you and Henry—”

“No, Mother,” Lydia interrupted. “Of course not.”

“I hope you won’t waste your future because of a youthful…understanding,” Mother said. “No matter how fine a young man Henry may be.”

“I do think eighteen is rather young to consider marriage.” Father flashed Lydia a sympathetic smile.

Lydia dropped her utensils onto her plate. “I’m not getting married,” she said firmly, trying to keep her voice level. “So don’t worry.” Then, giving Nell one last angry scowl, she rose from the table and strode out the doorway, stamping her feet as she fled upstairs to her room. She blinked hard to keep back the tears. The people she loved most in the world were pushing her in opposite directions, causing her almost physical pain. Her real dream for the future seemed so unlikely and impractical that she was embarrassed to share it with them. Her parents would find it laughable, and Henry would be devastated at the thought of her leaving. If she couldn’t count on the support of her family or Henry, she must truly be alone.

It had begun with a story in Life magazine, a photo essay about the G.I. bill that showed former soldiers going to colleges across the country. Amid the pictures of grinning young men playing baseball and posing with their fraternity rings, one in particular caught her eye:

Former lieutenant Roy S. Hartigan saw fierce fighting along the Italian peninsula, but he also gained an appreciation for Renaissance painting. Today, he has put aside his rifle in favor of a paintbrush, pursuing a degree at the New York Institute of Art.

It wasn’t Roy S. Hartigan who grabbed her attention; he appeared to be a rather bland, expressionless young man. It was the scene captured in that photograph: young men and women standing seriously in front of easels, brushes in hand, surrounded by walls covered with brightly colored canvases. All those people, together in one room, doing something she loved.

The idea that she could actually study art opened up a world of possibilities she’d never considered. College could be more than a dutiful obligation to her parents. It could be a chance to follow her passion. She wanted to be one of the people in that room. Wanted it more than anything. More, even, than Henry.

At first, the Institute of Art was an elaborate fantasy constructed when she lay in bed at night, trying to sleep. She pictured herself riding the train to New York—how long would it take? Days? Alighting with suitcase in hand at a glamorous, bustling train station; standing in class while a professor with a European accent showed her the proper way to sculpt marble or draw a still life. It was nothing more than a daydream, with no relation to her real life.

But as the college pressure from her parents grew more intense, so did Lydia’s urge to escape. She wrote to the most sophisticated person she knew—her distant cousin Eleanor, with whom she had spent time during summers in Lake Geneva—and asked her to find out what she could about the New York Institute of Art, without saying anything to Mother.

Eleanor’s reply came a few weeks later, in a large brown envelope.

Having too often made the safe choice rather than the desired one, I am all in favor of you pursuing your dreams. If I can be of any help in bringing your mother ’round to your side, you need simply ask.

Inside the envelope, Eleanor had enclosed a large, glossy booklet about the Institute, along with the school’s application packet for next year.

Lydia examined each page until she had it memorized. She read and reread the passages that might bolster her case with Mother: “The Institute strongly upholds the belief that a wide-ranging, liberal arts education is crucial to the development of any future artist…” “At the Lucille B. Davison women’s dormitory, female students live in a safe, companionable setting with the warmth of home, supervised by a live-in matron…” “Among our distinguished alumni are the assistant director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the owners of numerous prestigious New York and European art galleries, the noted artist Paul Thewlins…”

All of this was guaranteed to appeal to her mother’s snobbery and reassure her protective father. But art school—let alone art school in New York City—seemed like a far-off, unattainable dream. A vast world away from Knox Junction, where three couples in her senior class were already engaged, including her closest friend, Melanie. Henry hadn’t yet popped the question—despite Mother’s suspicions—but Lydia knew it was coming. College would be a four-year reprieve, at most.

Lydia still wasn’t sure she wanted to marry Henry. The disloyalty of that truth filled her with shame, since Henry had been her emotional support for so many years. He even encouraged her artistic leanings, buying her an oil-paint set last Christmas that she’d unwrapped with stunned joy. She’d no doubt she could live happily with Henry for the rest of her life. It was all the other trappings of marriage that left her feeling cold and afraid—moving into a farmhouse at the end of a dirt road; rising with the dawn to feed chickens and milk cows; being expected to produce children at regular two-or three-year intervals. Staying in Knox Junction when there were cities like New York waiting to be explored.

Alone in her room now, Lydia pulled the Institute of Art package from its hiding place under her bed. The application was surprisingly simple: a half page of personal information, a request for a reference from a high school teacher or principal and three samples of artwork. It was nowhere near as demanding as the application from Wellesley, which was sitting neatly on her pillow. For that one, she’d have to write an essay entitled “Why Wellesley?,” a seemingly straightforward but fiendishly difficult assignment. The Smith application required something similar. Already, she knew far more about the New York Institute of Art than she knew about either of those more prestigious schools. She could already picture herself unpacking at the Lucille B. Davison women’s dormitory, having late-night discussions with her fellow students about painting versus sculpture. Instead, she’d be filling out applications for schools she didn’t want to attend.

Lydia glanced again at the Wellesley application. “Why Wellesley?” Good question. One that, if she was honest, she’d answer: “Because my mother wants me to go.”

Lydia smiled, despite her frustration. Just imagine what the Wellesley administrators would say if they read that!