CHAPTER 22
Letters Both Ways
Goldpine
Ruth wrote to her own small circle of correspondents with the news of her engagement, finding particular satisfaction in composing a letter to Callie Cross in the New Mexico Territory sentiment, understanding that Callie, of all the brides Ruth had helped settle in Goldpine, would likely appreciate most thoroughly the particular irony of the matchmaker herself finally requiring her own match.
Dear Callie, she wrote, I write with news I confess I never properly expected to share, having spent so many years believing my own romantic prospects thoroughly settled in favor of my ministry's considerable demands.
I am to be married, to a physician of genuine character named Caleb Ashworth, who arrived in Goldpine some months back carrying a grief I recognized, through my own considerable experience counseling others through similar loss, as requiring patient partnership rather than mere professional courtesy to properly heal.
I confess I find myself rather amused, examining the whole affair honestly, that I who matched eleven couples before my own engagement required considerably more careful convincing to recognize and claim my own happiness than any of the brides I helped settle here these past years.
Callie's reply, arriving some weeks later, carried the particular warmth Ruth had come to expect from their now-regular correspondence.
Dearest Ruth, I could not be more delighted by this news, though I confess I'm not remotely surprised, having watched your own considerable generosity toward everyone else's happiness these past years and privately wondering when you'd finally recognize your own deserving of the same.
Nathaniel and I send our warmest congratulations, and I do hope circumstances might eventually permit us to attend the wedding itself, whatever considerable distance presently separates our two households.
Caleb, for his part, wrote a rather more extensive letter to Edmund Whitcombe, detailing his engagement's particulars with the openness he had promised during Edmund's visit, and received in return a reply carrying warmth that exceeded even his own cautious hopes for the relationship's continued healing.
I could not be more pleased, Edmund wrote, having met Miss Larson myself and witnessed firsthand the genuine partnership you two have evidently built together.
Margaret remains somewhat more reserved in her own acceptance, though I believe, given sufficient time and perhaps eventual correspondence with Miss Larson herself, she might yet come to properly embrace this happy development.
I would be honored, should circumstances permit the considerable journey, to attend your wedding myself, understanding that whatever distance now separates us, I continue to consider you rather like a son, and this happy occasion rather like witnessing a son's genuine flourishing after considerable hardship.
This letter, shared with Ruth over their evening tea, settled something further in Caleb's ongoing reconciliation with his complicated Philadelphia connections, and he found himself, reading Edmund's warm words a second time, grateful beyond measure for a former mentor whose own capacity for grace had helped smooth what might otherwise have remained a considerably more painful transition into his new life and new love.
“I think,” Ruth observed, watching him fold the letter away with evident satisfaction, “that this particular reconciliation speaks rather well of both your characters — Edmund's genuine capacity for grace despite his own considerable grief, and your own willingness to remain honestly connected to your past rather than simply severing it entirely in pursuit of your new happiness.”
“I've learned, these past months, that genuine healing rarely requires such complete severance, Ruth.
I've found, rather, that properly integrating my past — Eleanor's memory, my complicated relationship with her family, my whole considerable history as a physician who once failed his most important patient — into my present happiness serves me considerably better than any attempt to simply leave it all behind entirely.”
“That's a wisdom I've come to share myself, examining my own path toward our present happiness. I don't believe genuine healing ever requires forgetting what came before, only learning to carry it forward alongside whatever new joy life eventually offers in addition.”
Margaret Whitcombe's own eventual letter arrived some weeks later, considerably shorter than her husband's warm correspondence but carrying, in its careful, measured sentences, the first genuine sign of her own softening toward the whole difficult situation.
I confess, she wrote, that Edmund's account of his visit, and of Miss Larson's evident character, has given me considerable pause regarding my earlier judgment.
I do not know that I am ready to fully embrace this news, Caleb, my grief for Eleanor remaining rather more raw than perhaps befits a mother who ought, by now, to have found her way toward greater peace.
But I am willing to extend the possibility of eventual reconciliation, should you both prove willing to extend me the same patience Edmund assures me you've shown him.
Caleb read this letter with a cautious hope that exceeded even his response to Edmund's warmer correspondence, understanding that Margaret's grudging willingness represented, for a woman of her evident pride and considerable grief, a genuinely significant concession.
“I'll write her back directly,” he told Ruth, “extending whatever patience and continued communication might eventually help her toward proper peace with this whole situation.
I'll not press her toward faster reconciliation than her own grief permits.”
“That's precisely the right approach, I think, Caleb. Some wounds require considerably more time than others to properly heal, and I'd rather we extend genuine patience than force a reconciliation neither of us could properly trust as authentic.”
Caleb's reply to Margaret, composed with considerable care over several evenings, extended precisely the patient warmth Ruth had counseled, acknowledging her continued grief without either dismissing it or accepting full responsibility for a burden that was never rightfully his alone to carry.
I understand your continued pain, Margaret, he wrote, and I would not for the world rush you toward a reconciliation your own heart isn't yet ready to properly extend.
I will simply continue writing, sharing my genuine circumstances honestly, and trust that whatever peace eventually becomes possible between us will arrive in its own proper season, rather than through any forced timeline either of us might otherwise impose upon it.
This letter, and the several that followed it over the coming months, gradually built exactly the kind of patient bridge Caleb had hoped for, Margaret's own replies growing incrementally warmer as genuine trust slowly replaced her earlier guarded grief, until eventually, some months hence, she would find herself ready to extend the same grace her husband had already, more readily, discovered within himself.
Ruth found herself, watching this careful epistolary reconciliation unfold over the following weeks, increasingly impressed by Caleb's patient dedication to properly healing this complicated family relationship rather than simply accepting the easier path of continued estrangement.
“You could simply let the relationship lapse, given how difficult Margaret's initial response proved,” she observed.
“I'd not think less of you for choosing that easier path.”
“I could, but I'd not want to, Ruth. Margaret raised the woman I once loved with everything a mother's got in her to give, and I owe her, I think, whatever patient effort proper reconciliation requires, however slowly that reconciliation eventually unfolds.”
This evident commitment to honoring even the more difficult relationships his past required struck Ruth as further confirmation of the genuine character she had come to love in him, and she found herself, watching him compose yet another careful letter to Margaret one particular evening, more certain than ever that she had found, in this careful, considerate physician, precisely the partner her own guarded heart had spent years unknowingly waiting for.
She wrote her own brief note to Margaret as well, some weeks later, choosing her words with particular care to avoid any appearance of pressing for reconciliation while still extending genuine warmth.
I understand something of losing a parent to sudden circumstance, she wrote, having lost my own mother and father within a single terrible year some nine years past. I do not pretend to fully understand your particular grief for a daughter, which I imagine carries its own considerably different weight, but I wanted you to know that I hold Eleanor's memory with genuine respect, and mean never to let Caleb's new happiness diminish whatever place she continues to hold in his heart, or in yours.
This small gesture, extended without any expectation of immediate reply, nonetheless proved instrumental in Margaret's eventual softening, the older woman confiding to Edmund some weeks later that Ruth's letter had struck her as evidence of genuine character rather than mere convenient courtesy.
Margaret's own eventual reply, when it finally arrived some weeks after Ruth's letter, carried a warmth that surprised even Caleb, who had grown accustomed to his former mother-in-law's more guarded correspondence.
Thank you for your kind words, Ruth, she wrote.
I confess I had not expected such genuine understanding from a stranger, and find myself considerably moved by your evident respect for Eleanor's memory.
I hope, in time, we might come to know each other properly, whatever distance presently separates us.
Ruth read this reply with tears of genuine relief, understanding that the whole difficult family reconciliation Caleb had worked so patiently to build was finally, properly bearing fruit.
“This is wonderful news, Caleb. I confess I'd worried this particular healing might take considerably longer than it evidently has.”
“I'd wager your own genuine warmth accelerated the process rather considerably, Ruth. Margaret's grief needed exactly the kind of honest, patient understanding you extended her, rather than any further defensive justification from myself alone.”
They wrote back to Margaret together that same evening, extending an open invitation for her to visit Goldpine whenever circumstances permitted, understanding that this particular reconciliation, however genuinely progressing through careful correspondence, would ultimately require the same kind of direct, personal meeting that had so thoroughly transformed Edmund's own initial skepticism into genuine, warm approval.
Ruth found herself, sealing this joint letter, reflecting on the whole remarkable arc of reconciliation this single family had traveled since Caleb's own difficult departure from Philadelphia some months before, understanding that genuine healing, however painful its early stages, generally proved considerably more possible than any of the parties involved had initially dared to properly hope.