“Voila.” The woman appeared in front of them again, startling them both. She held an outsize dark wooden frame, which she set on the table. Its sticky, yellowed glass held an envelope, which read, “For the seeker from Gregory Place.”
“That’s us!” Edie pointed at the phrase. “And this is definitely Agatha’s handwriting.” She started to lift the frame, but the woman put her finger up to stop her. She grabbed Edie’s water carafe, held it over the glass, then brought it down sharply. The glass dissolved into thousands of sparkling cigarette-smoked amber pieces, contained by the frame.
“Jesus!” Edie laughed. “No turning back now. Cosima, do you want to do the honors?”
Cosima picked up a corner of the heavy white envelope, the same as the envelope the map had been sealed into, and gently shook off the pieces of glass. She turned it over, broke what was left of the dry glue holding the seal, and pulled out the paper, which held several lines of Agatha’s bold, stylized cursive.
Minnie,
If you’ve made it all the way here again and you’re reading this letter, maybe you’ve already walked through the city, searching out the dark corners and cobbled alleyways we found to steal kisses, to sigh into the other’s neck, and to otherwise believe in the magic of someplace far away from any other place you’ve been, where any kind of love is possible.
Isn’t it possible? Isn’t it? If you’re reading this, I have to think you’ve decided that it is.
Minnie, my darling girl, I don’t care if you didn’t know right when I wanted you to, and I don’t believe I ever will. I believe I will only ever care that you eventually decided tocome to me. I hope you know that. I hope you never thought that I left you. I didn’t, I didn’t.
I’m crying writing this, half-afraid you’ll never read it, sick with excitement that you will. Love is not impossible. Not in any place, any language, and not any kind of love, even ours. If you’re not yet convinced, go back to the sacred family, go back to the Gaudí, and I’ll try again.
I’ll never stop trying.
Yours yours yours,
Bronwyn A. Llewellyn
Cosima looked at Edie, who was so excited, so expectant.
She had no way of knowing that this letter had given Cosima a glimpse of their future, and it looked a lot like the pile of broken glass inside the frame.
Chapter Sixteen
Edie pulled off her work gloves and waved at the man whose truck had just lifted the full skip onto its bed. He waved back, hopped into the truck, and drove away.
Morag had gone to visit a sister she’d heretofore never mentioned. This had happened almost the moment Edie and Cosima returned from Rouen in the wee hours of the morning the day after they found the letter at the café. She’d stuck around just long enough to give Edie a list of where she had accounts and to warn her not to break her Aga, and then she was gone, leaving only a number to call and let her know when “the dust had settled.”
Edie wasn’t sure what dust Morag meant. The dust from the hundreds of square feet of mauve carpet that Edie had pulled up tack by tack? Or the dust between Edie and Cosima that had kicked up in the aftermath of reading Agatha’s letter to the mysterious Minnie?
“Wow.” Cosima emerged through a temporary plastic flapthat Edie had hung on the landing, then minced down the stairs on the protective paper Edie had taped down in order to cover the wool runner that didn’t need replacing because it was actually quite nice. “Who would have thought?”
Edie looked over the lounge—the only room Morag’s deal gave her dominion over. Its furniture now sat beneath a cheap yard shelter on the lawn next to the garden gate. She had put furniture broken beyond repair in the skip and saved the rest, most of which needed only polishing or reupholstering. “How old do you think this floor is?”
Cosima tipped her head at the foot-wide, buttery-smooth planks of the wood floor Edie had revealed by pulling up the carpet, removing tacks, and running a rented buffer for several hours. “If it’s not original, it’s nearly.”
“That would make it almost three hundred years old.”
“I think this must be Victorian, though.” Cosima walked across the empty room to the fireplace Edie had found under a more modern box and a mantle made from drywall and pine. The elaborate cast iron fireplace beneath had survived Edie’s inexpert attention with steel wool and beeswax to take on a dark glow. Under the carpet, a glossy tile hearth was hiding, with handmade tiles in a relief pattern that matched the one on the fireplace—oak leaves and ivy.
“I called someone on Morag’s list to come have a look at the chimney.”
Cosima nodded. “Did you call someone for the plaster?”
Edie had stripped the mauve-and-brown flocked wallpaper to reveal lime plaster that needed some repair. The reception had never been wallpapered, its plaster kept up with a creamy mineral paint Edie had found a few cans of in the inn’s shed, and she thought the best plan would be to make them match. “I did. I’m hoping it’s mostly sound.”
Cosima shoved her hands into the pockets of the green coveralls she’d been wearing in the garden. Her hair was schooled into a tight braid, and she wore socks, ready to step into her wellies by the kitchen door.
Ready to avoid Edie some more.
It was the third day of this. Seven left before Cosima would have to leave. Then Edie would be here another week with only Morag to cry on before she scraped herself into a plane. On the other side, her mother would be waiting in her Dodge Ram in the pickup line at the Green Bay airport.
“Do you think we could have tea before you went into the garden?” She tried to make her voice sound casual and not like she was pleading for her life.
