Chapter 10
Emma’s Friday morning meeting with Rachel took less than an hour.
Arthur had been served the courtesy letter at three the previous afternoon, and Rachel still hadn’t heard from him or an attorney representing him. She expected that to change before the end of the day or first thing Monday.
At the door to the reception area, Rachel stopped.
“You’re handling this well, Emma. I hope you’re as pleased as I am with how things are going, but don’t get too comfortable. These things can change quickly.”
“I won’t.”
Emma left Alden & Petit and walked back to her car. The meeting had gone as well as she could have hoped, but Rachel’s warning stayed with her. Arthur had been quiet since the letter was delivered, and Emma knew him well enough to understand that silence didn’t mean acceptance.
She drove down Fleming Street with no real plan beyond lunch at Margarita Max’s and an afternoon at Winslow’s going through the original probate file Rachel had given her.
There was more reading to do than Emma wanted to think about, but for once she didn’t mind the work.
Every document gave her another piece of what Arthur had done, and she was no longer trying to sort through it alone.
She parked on Simonton, walked the two blocks to Max’s and pushed through the screen door.
The lunch crowd was thinning. A few stools were occupied at the bar, and two tables near the windows were still taken. Tess was wiping down a tray of glasses while Leah stood at the register. Neither of them noticed Emma at first because Lloyd was in the middle of a story.
“Nineteen eighty-eight,” Lloyd said.
“Ninety-one,” Leah corrected.
“Eighty-eight, because the boat was still mine in eighty-eight, and I know what year I sold the boat.” Lloyd turned his glass a quarter turn on the bar.
“Anyway, she’d been out to Woman Key with us all day.
We came in around ten that night, and she went down into the cabin to get her sandals.
She came straight back up without them.”
“Why?” Tess asked, although her expression said she already knew.
“Because there was a raccoon on the bunk.”
Tess stopped wiping the glass. “Alive?”
“Very much so. Sitting up on his back end with a peach from my cooler in both front paws, like a man eating dinner.” Lloyd took a drink of beer. “I’ve had two wives, and neither one ever looked at me the way that animal did.”
“So what did you do?”
“I got off the boat.”
Leah stared at him. “That was your boat, Lloyd.”
“It was his boat by then. You could tell.”
Emma laughed before she could stop herself.
Tess looked up.
“There you are. Sit down at the window, honey, but come here first. Connie’s got something for you.”
“Something for me?”
Tess reached beneath the bar and brought out a small cream-colored envelope.
Emma’s name was written across the front in careful handwriting.
She took it.
“Who left this?”
“His daughter, I think. Connie said it came in yesterday afternoon. She doesn’t think he wrote the envelope himself because his handshakes now.”
Emma looked at her.
“Who is he?”
Tess’s voice softened.
“The gentleman who used to read to your grandmother. Connie found him.”
Emma looked down at the envelope again.
For several days, Gloria’s gentleman friend had been nothing more than a story Connie remembered and a name Emma didn’t have. Now he was suddenly real enough to have sent her a letter.
“Oh my goodness, thank you so much.”
“Take it to your table. I’ll bring you something to eat.”
“I haven’t ordered.”
“Tomato basil soup. It’s actually decent today.”
Emma smiled faintly. “That’s quite a recommendation.”
“I don’t oversell.”
Emma carried the envelope to the table near the window and sat in her chair. She put the envelope in front of her and looked at her name again.
She wanted to open it immediately, but for some reason she didn’t.
Gloria had known this man for years. He had read to her, traveled with her and apparently been important enough that Connie remembered him all this time later.
Emma had spent the last few days wanting to find him, yet now that his letter was sitting in front of her, she felt nervous about what it might contain.
She slipped one finger beneath the flap.
The paper inside was heavy and ivory, folded neatly in thirds. The letter was handwritten in the same careful hand as the envelope.
Dear Ms. Kendrick,
My name is Edmund Fairbanks. I am a retired professor of Classics from Brown University, presently staying with my daughter Rebecca in Key West as I recover from an illness.
First, let me say I’m so grateful to our mutual friend, Connie for getting in touch with me. I’m embarrassed to say, I’m at fault for letting so much time go by without getting in touch with you.
I am writing you because your grandmother, Gloria, and I were dear to one another for the last eight and a half years of her life, and because I have something she asked me to give you if the day ever came that you and I were to meet.
I would have written you sooner. The delay is entirely mine, and I owe you an explanation for it in person. I am well enough to travel a short distance now and would be grateful for the chance to sit with you.
If it is agreeable, I would propose meeting at The Reading Room on Elizabeth Street tomorrow morning at ten. It’s a bookstore with a small cafe, a garden in the back, and quiet enough for the sort of conversation I hope to have with you. I will be at the corner table beneath the olive tree.
I understand if this letter is unwelcome, or if the timing is difficult. Please write back through Connie if you prefer another day. I will make myself available.
I’m sorry I’m not using technology to communicate, but I’m a bit old-fashioned and prefer writing instead.
Your grandmother spoke of you with great love. I hope I may tell you what I know.
Yours sincerely,
Edmund Fairbanks
There was a Providence, Rhode Island address beneath his signature and a Key West phone number below that.
Emma read the letter again.
Eight and a half years.
Until that moment, she hadn’t thought about how long that really was. She had imagined Gloria’s gentleman friend as someone who had appeared late in her grandmother’s life. Perhaps he was a companion she met for dinner or someone who sat beside her at Margarita Max’s.
Eight and a half years was different.
That was birthdays and holidays. It was ordinary Tuesdays and Sunday mornings.
It was enough time to know what someone drank with breakfast and which stories they told too often.
Edmund hadn’t been standing at the edge of Gloria’s life.
He had been part of it, and her grandmother never said a word about it to her.
Emma looked again at the line near the beginning.
We were dear to one another.
She wondered why Gloria had never told her.
The question brought an uncomfortable one behind it. Had Emma ever given her the chance?
Their Sunday calls had usually been about Emma’s work, Chicago weather, Gloria’s garden or whatever book she was reading.
Emma could remember asking whether Gloria was feeling well and whether she needed anything.
She couldn’t remember asking if there was someone in her life. It never occurred to her to ask.
Then there was the other sentence.
I have something she asked me to give you.
Emma read that one again.
Whatever Edmund had been carrying for her had come from Gloria, and Gloria had apparently believed there might be a day when the two of them would meet.
Emma wasn’t sure what to do with that yet.
She folded the letter along its creases and then immediately opened it again.
Your grandmother spoke of you with great love.
Her eyes filled before she could stop them.
Emma looked toward the window until the feeling passed. She wasn’t sad exactly. The words simply reached somewhere she hadn’t expected them to.
Tess appeared beside the table with a bowl of soup and a glass of iced tea. She set both down without asking a question.
Emma appreciated her for that.
“Can I borrow a piece of paper?”
Tess pointed toward Emma’s bag. “You own a legal pad.”
“I don’t want to answer him on yellow paper.”
“Fair enough.”
She returned a moment later with a sheet of white stationery and an envelope.
Emma took out her pen.
Dear Mr. Fairbanks,
Thank you for your letter. I would very much like to meet you. Ten o’clock tomorrow at The Reading Room is perfect. I will find you at the corner table.
I’m glad you are well enough to be here. Please give my regards to your daughter.
Sincerely,
Emma Kendrick
She read it once before folding it into thirds and putting it in the envelope.
At the bar, Tess took it from her.
“To go back to him?”
“Please. Through Connie.”
“She’ll get it there today.”
Emma glanced toward the kitchen.
“Is Connie here?”
“She went to the fish market. She’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
“Tell her thank you for me.”
“I will.”
Emma returned to the table.
Edmund’s letter lay beside her bowl. She looked at the handwriting while she ate.
There was something oddly fitting about a retired Classics professor writing a letter instead of sending an email.
She didn’t know the man yet, but the formality of it felt right with what Connie had told her about him.
She wondered what Gloria had liked about him.
Maybe it was his mind. Gloria had loved books and people who could tell a good story. Maybe he made her laugh. Maybe he was patient with her when she became ill, or maybe she had been patient with him.
Emma stopped herself.
Tomorrow she wouldn’t have to guess.
She finished the soup and smiled when Tess passed her table.
“You undersold it.”
“I told you it was decent.”
“It’s better than decent.”
“Don’t say that too loudly. Connie will raise the price.”
Emma laughed, and some of the nervousness eased.
Back at Winslow’s, Emma carried Edmund’s letter and the probate file out to the patio.
She intended to work, instead, she read his letter again.
The same sentence caught her.
Your grandmother spoke of you with great love.
Emma rested the page on her lap.