“When?”
“From 1952 to 1958. She was eighteen at the beginning and he was twenty-two.”
Noah shook his head decisively. “Couldn’t have been him.”
“Really? Because it was from an Edward at Golden Doors.”
“Edward’s a popular name. It might have been a gardener, a cook, a cleaner—”
Good lord, a regularDownton Abbeyof staff. “Andhe wrote about painting light.”
“What?”
“In one of the letters, he wrote about painting the light on the ocean. I saw one of your grandfather’s paintings in his study.”
Noah scowled. “Maybe they weren’t love letters.”
“Um.” I thought about some of the more, ah,romanticpassages. “They were love letters.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?” I took a stab. “Because Edward married your grandmother in 1958?”
“How do you know that?” he snapped.
I took a step back, surprised at his ferocity. “It’s this newfangled device I call Google.”
“Well.” Noah pressed his lips into a fine line. “He did. So he wouldn’t have been writinglove lettersto another girl the same year.”
Oof. I stared at the soft-looking texture of his polo shirt. “I hate to break it to you...”
“Don’t.” He started walking
“What? I’m not passing judgment. But it’s a possibility.” I hurried a few steps to catch up with his long-legged strides. “Aren’t you curious?”
“About if my grandpa wascheatingon my grandma? No.”
“Maybe your grandparents didn’t meet until Edward and my grandmother ended. And, uh, married really fast.”
“My grandparents dated for years before they got married.”
I paused. Years? But Edward and O’ma had written love letters forsixyears. And some of the letters had been rather steamy. And he’d definitely never mentioned a Helen. “Maybe they were on and off? Or took a break? Which, totally reasonable. Who wants to stay with one person their entire life?” When he shot me a skeptical look, I expounded. “It’s unrealistic to think your first love will be your final love. People change, you know? Maybe you’re totally, madly in love one day, and then you’re not.”
He looked at me with a little more interest, as though seeing me as a person instead of a problem. “I take it you went through a breakup recently.”
“Rude.” I sighed. “My boyfriend dumped me four months ago. It’s fine. He wasn’t so impressive.”
“Then why were you dating him?”
“Great question.” Matt and I hadn’t been friends first—I ran in a low-key artsy/nerdy crowd, whereas he’d focused on racking up achievements, be it soccer captain or president of National Honor Society or debate club. We’d been partnered together in Chem, and things had rolled from there. “He looked impressive on paper. Which I guess was his whole point. It turned out being in a relationship got in the way of building up his college resume.”
“Rough.”
“Not my fave life experience, yeah.”
We walked a few more paces. “Okay,” Noah said, “so you think since your relationship didn’t work, no relationships work, and so my grandfather must have cheated on my grandmother?”
“Oh my god, are you for real? You’re extrapolating way too much.”
