Chapter Eighteen #2
Edie hustled. She found herself settled into a sturdy wooden chair beside Cosima, before the desk of Sister Ona, if the nameplate was correct.
The nun had short-cropped gray hair, a dark sweater, a silver chain around her neck with a bright silver cross, and a lit cigarette between her lips.
She looked older than Morag. She pushed a tin of cookies in Cosima and Edie’s direction.
“Have one,” she demanded. “The cloistered sisters make them. They’re hard to find, but I have a source. ”
Edie peered into the tin. She took a crumbly cookie out and smelled anise. “Are these baked on bricks? Butter or olive oil?”
The nun’s head disappeared below the edge of her desk, where she’d opened a drawer with a screech of metal on metal.
The priest stood behind her chair, his arms crossed, beaming.
“I didn’t think I’d be here to see this,” he said.
“I wasn’t here for the beginning, of course, but I believed it would go on long past my time. ”
Sister Ona snorted. “Things come to an end, José Antonio. I knew I would live long enough for this day. I plan to live to see the building of this basilica to an end.” The top of her head rose back into view, and she looked at Edie.
“Bricks, yes. Olive oil.” Then she dropped something white onto the desktop.
It was a stack of envelopes. It immediately toppled, sending the one on top skating toward Cosima, who snatched it just as it was about to drop to the floor.
Edie took a bite of her cookie. “Did you know that cloistered nuns invented marzipan?” The question was mostly for herself, to help her focus. “They used to make cakes and pastries for the rich in exchange for donations.”
Cosima opened the envelope and extracted a letter written on cream stationery. Edie wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it said. She focused on the sandy cookie melting against her teeth with coarse sugar, the tang of anise both familiar and different from how it tasted back home.
“She sends a new letter every year.” Sister Ona patted the pile of letters. “I’ve read all of her books. They are…” She looked at the priest. “Sobre gustos no hi ha res escrit?”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” he said.
Edie watched Cosima read the letter, her expression revealing nothing. After a moment, she passed it to Edie.
Agatha’s handwriting was still strong, but the lines were slightly uneven. The handwriting showed the age of the author, and this made Edie’s heart squeeze.
Darling Minnie,
If you’re reading this, you’ve come to Barcelona. Love has triumphed over fear, or maybe you’ve become curious. I don’t care which.
You told me you didn’t know how to find the way to be with me, and I told you I would make you a map. I said it would be there when you were ready, and so would I.
Come to One Tree Cottage in Tintern. You said you wanted to see it someday. Is today someday?
I love you still.
Bronwyn A. Llewellyn
Edie’s tears fell through the fingers of her hand she’d clasped over her mouth. She looked at Sister Ona. “How many?”
Ona put her hand on top of the stack. “Not quite fifty. The first one was handed to me in 1977. The others have come each year around Epiphany.”
“And we’re the first to ask for them?”
She nodded. “Agatha told me the person who claimed them would have a map. That was your ticket, though I suspect you’re not who she’s expecting.”
Edie shook her head. Cosima and the priest were quiet.
“May I?” Sister Ona asked, holding out her hand.
Edie watched Ona read the letter, then shake her head much like Edie had. At last, she handed the letter to Father José Antonio, who read it and then solemnly kissed the top of the paper. He looked at Edie and Cosima. “What will you do? The messengers?”
“We’ll go to Tintern, in Wales,” Cosima said.
“It’s the only thing to do. Agatha has to know that Minnie never came back to the inn to start the hunt.
She should know that Morag, the innkeeper in Harlaxton, had us go, I assume because Morag knows it’s a lost cause or suspects it is. Or, at least, she knows something.”
Edie felt lost. This evidence that Agatha had never stopped loving Minnie was unexpectedly devastating.
Ever since Rouen, she’d hoped it wasn’t the case—that the map was an old chase made by a romantic girl during a time when few queer people would have felt they could love who they loved no matter what.
Cosima had told Edie about Tam and Killian, and about Tam’s father.
That was Minnie and Agatha’s world, too.
But now it was clear—Agatha had never stopped hoping.
Never. The torch she held for Minnie was as bright as this paper, sent at Epiphany, which was in early January. Only last month.
“We have to go back to Gregory Place,” she said.
“Morag knew this treasure hunt wasn’t to find gold or jewels, but she acted like it was.
Negotiated a split. Even after the Rouen letter, she insisted we get back to it.
I think she made us keep going so that she could settle her guest book.
Or, I guess, get word to Agatha that whatever happened at the inn all those years ago wasn’t happening?
I don’t know. But I don’t think that’s something we should do.
What if Minnie’s passed away? Or what if she’s a grandmother or great-grandmother somewhere, and she doesn’t want anything to do with this?
We need to go back and sit Morag down and make a plan that’s kind.
We can’t just show up on Agatha’s doorstep and relieve her of her hope with no chance of closure. It’s cruel.”
The stack of letters on Sister Ona’s desk felt like a sacred trust, an archive of one woman’s most cherished dream. As much as she enjoyed reading about sapphic romance and queer history, Edie couldn’t play tourist with someone else’s heartbreak.
Not when her own was bearing down on her.
Cosima turned in her chair and took Edie’s hand between both of hers, the same way the priest had clasped her hand in his.
“I hear you, I do, but I still think we need to go to Agatha. Today. It’s been too long.
It’s none of our business. It wasn’t Morag’s business either.
If it were me, if this were us, Edie, I’d want some evidence that I hadn’t been writing into a void all this time.
I’d want some kind of permission to grieve.
Maybe that’s why we’re both here. Because we can understand, can’t we? ”
Edie pulled her hand away to wipe her tears again.
“I don’t know. I don’t think this is for us.
It may be that we brought it to light, but I can’t imagine we’re supposed to finish this?
Once and for all? That feels awful. I came to England in the first place with a broken heart.
Now I don’t know how you and me will end.
I can’t deliver heartbreak to this woman. ”
“Then who can?” Cosima argued. “Morag calls her? Morag? She’s not known for her sensitivity.”
“We said at the beginning if we didn’t know what to do, we had to ask a third party.”
“You picked last time. The Sixt clerk.”
Edie nodded. Cosima looked between the priest and the nun, then back to Sister Ona. “You’ve been part of this since the beginning. What should we do?”
She folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “Father José Antonio will drive you to the airport. You can take a car to Tintern from Cardiff.”
Edie’s belly sank, but she reached for Cosima’s hand anyway. Because if you couldn’t reach for the woman you loved when you felt the worst, when could you?
She hoped Agatha hadn’t been sad this whole time. She hoped her life had been good, even without Minnie.
Cosima squeezed her hand. “I know it seems impossible, but I think it’s going to be okay.” She said this in her most imperious voice, so Edie chose to believe it.
It would be okay. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought so. Even when she had tried to make a legacy and was running entirely on hope.
“So goes my princess, so goes my nation.”
Edie smiled and hoped that this time, everything would turn out different.