Five
SAM’S HOUSEwas my favorite place in the world, the sanest, and always the safest—until tonight anyway.
Now everything seemed off-kilter. The kitchen was dark, so I threw on the light switch. Then I put down the cats and opened their cage doors.
The girls sprang forward like little racehorses out of the gate. Sox is three-quarters alley cat, one-quarter loudmouth Siamese. Euphoria is an all-white longhair with green eyes and a smoochy nature. My hands were still shaking from stress as I fed the two of them.
Then I walked from room to room, and it all looked exactly the same.
An old burnished hardwood floor secured with square-headed nails. A chaotic mass of houseplants crowding the bay window in the dining room. An astonishing view of the lake. Books spread everywhere.Bel Canto. Queen Noor’s memoir.A Short History of Nearly Everything.
And the artifacts that Sam and I loved: antique ice tongs from the days when blocks of ice were shipped by horse teams to Milwaukee and Chicago; old snowshoes; paintings of the round pink crab apple trees along the lake and of the old train depot.
I heaved a big sigh. This really was home to me, more than anywhere else, especially now that Danny was gone from our apartment in Chicago.
I took my duffel bag upstairs to “my room,” with its views down onto the lake.
I was about to drop the bag on the vanity table when I saw that it was already occupied.
What is this?
There were a dozen banded packets of envelopes, probably a hundred envelopes in all, maybe more. Each was numbered and addressed to me.
My heart started thudding as I guessed about the letters. For years, I had been asking Sam to tell me her story. I wanted to hear it, and record it for my own children to hear. And now here it was. Had she known what was going to happen to her? Had she been feeling sick?
I didn’t bother to undress. I just slid into the soft folds of bedcovers and took a stack of the letters into my lap.
I stared at my name written in blue-inked script. Sam’s familiar handwriting. Then I turned over the first envelope and carefully peeled open the flap.
The letter inside was written on beautiful white linen paper.
I took a deep breath, and noticed I was trembling as I began to read.
Six
Dear Jennifer,
You’ve just left after our most recent “girls” weekend together and my heart is full of you. Actually, I decided to write this when we were saying good-bye at the car. It just came to me.
I was looking into your eyes and I was struck by a feeling so hard that it physically hurt. I thought about how close we are, always have been, and how it would be a shame, almost a betrayal of our friendship, if I didn’t tell you some things about my life.
So I’ve made a decision, Jen, to tell you secrets that I’ve never told anyone before.
Some are good; a few you might find, well, I guessshockingis the word I’m looking for.
I’m in your room right now, looking out at our lake, drinking a mug of that heady spearmint tea we both like, and it makes me happy to think of you reading my letters a few at a time, just the way I’m writing them. I can see your face as I write this, Jennifer. I can see your lovely smile.
Right now, I’m thinking about love: the hot, crazy kind that turns your chest into a bell and your heart into a clapper. But also the more enduring kind that comes from knowing someone else deeply and letting yourself be known. What you had with Danny.
I guess I believe in both kinds of love, both kinds at the same time and with the same person.
By now you’re probably wondering why I’m going on about love. You’re twirling your hair around your finger, aren’t you?
Aren’tyou, Jennifer?
I want, Ineed,to talk to you about your grandfather and me, sweetheart. So here goes.
The truth is, I never really loved Charles.
