by Mary Simses
“I hope you don’t mind my calling, but there’s something kind of important I need to talk to you about.” He paused for a second. “And show you. Do you think you could stop by?”
“You mean come to your house?”
“Yes.”
Now I had a right to be nervous. Roy Cummings’s house? Probably not a good idea. “When?”
“Well, now would be great if you could do it.”
“Right now? What is it you want to show me?”
“I really think you should come over,” he said. There was urgency in his voice. “It has to do with your grandmother and my uncle.”
I looked at my watch. Three fifteen. Maybe Hayden was still out with the Times people. Maybe I could just run over to Roy’s for ten minutes.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”
Roy answered the door within seconds of my knock. I stepped into a small entry and followed him to the living room. The floor was chestnut-colored wood, and a white sofa and two chairs flanked a dark coffee table. The effect was simple but lovely. Built-in bookcases ran along one wall, filled with photos and objects that looked like antique tools—a wooden level, a set of planes with beautifully varnished handles, a wooden ruler with hinges that allowed it to fold. I wondered if they had been Chet’s. And then there were the books. Hundreds of them—small, large, hardbound, paperback. I wondered if the older books with the faded cloth covers had belonged to Chet as well.
Roy gestured for me to sit down. “Can I get you a drink or something? Water, soda, juice? Wine? I’ve got a nice Beychevelle you might like.”
A Beychevelle? Was he the one who was buying it from the Wine Cellar? Part of me was tempted to accept his offer, but I knew that was probably not a good idea.“No, thanks,” I said, deciding I’d better see what he had to show me and leave.
“I’ll be right back,” Roy said as I walked to the bookshelves.
There was a brass object I thought might be a plumb bob, but I wasn’t exactly sure what a plumb bob looked like. Next to it was a framed photo of Roy, looking like he was in his early twenties, and two older men who could almost be twins. The family resemblance among the three was obvious.
“That’s my dad,” Roy said, coming up behind me and pointing to the man on the left. “And that’s Uncle Chet.”
“Those Cummings eyes,” I said, turning to Roy. “You all have them. They’re so blue.”
We sat down, Roy at one end of the sofa and I in a chair opposite him. He held a wooden box in his hand, a little smaller than a shoe box. The outside was varnished to a satin gloss. It looked like cedar.
“When my uncle died,” he said, “he left a lot of things—clothes, personal effects, you know.” He leaned back against the sofa. “I really didn’t want to look at that stuff then. I was too upset. And besides, I figured there wasn’t any hurry to go through it.” He glanced at the box in his hand. “But the other day, after you came over here and I found you on the ladder…”
I looked down, embarrassed.
“And I was telling you about the marina…well, I knew my uncle had some old photos of the two of us taken there. And I thought maybe it was time to look at his stuff. I kept thinking about you and all these things you’re finding out about your grandmother and I thought, If Ellen can do it…so I figured I’d look for the photos. And I found them.” He hesitated for a moment. “But I also found something else.”
He handed me the box. “Go on, open it.”
I lifted the brass hinge on the front and opened the lid, letting the scent of cedar into the room. Inside the box lay a stack of envelopes, in slightly varying shapes and sizes, tied up with a brittle-looking piece of twine.
The edges of the envelopes were wrinkled and worn, the paper having faded to shades of cream and tan and even orange. Some of the postage stamps were visible. Like tiny works of art, they were printed in muted blues and reds and greens, with designs that appeared soft, almost out of focus. Large round cancellation marks showed that the envelopes had been mailed not once but twice.
The envelope on the top of the pile bore a three-cent stamp printed in a violet-brown, with a picture of Casey Jones in the middle and train locomotives on either side. In the middle of the envelope the name Ruth Goddard appeared along with a Chicago address. The fountain-pen ink, which I guessed had once been blue or black, had faded to an earthy brown, but the handwriting still looked neat, compact, and bold.
I ran my finger gently over the address. “From your uncle to my grandmother.”
Roy leaned in closer. “I didn’t want to read them without you.” He reached over and carefully untied the string. It broke apart in his hands.
I picked up the envelope on top of the pile. The paper felt thin and dry. On the back flap, the name Chet Cummings appeared above a Beacon address. I looked at all the other envelopes. They were all addressed to my grandmother in Chicago and they were all from Chet Cummings. Not one had been opened. On every envelope, Gran had crossed out her name and address and, in her neat cursive writing, had written “Return to Sender.”
I looked at Roy, sadness welling up inside me. “He wrote her all these.”
Roy nodded.
“From December second, 1950,” I said, looking at the cancellation marks, “to July ninth, 1951. All these letters and she never opened one.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Roy had said he wanted to read the letters, but I wasn’t so sure I could do it. These had to be love letters. I began to get a queasy feeling in my stomach.
“You really think we should read these?” I set the box on the coffee table. “These are all your uncle’s private thoughts, written to my grandmother.”
“Yes, I do,” Roy said with such total conviction it almost startled me. “I think we should read them.”
He walked to a window, stared at something, and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m not saying I’m completely comfortable with it. Yeah, it’s kind of like invading somebody’s privacy, I guess…but look, Ellen, your grandmother brought you into this, and now I guess my uncle has brought me into it. And we need to deal with it, for their sake and for ours, and move on. Whatever happened with them, we all need to let it go.”
I thought about his choice of words. We all need to let it go. All of us, including our ancestors, who, as Roy said, had brought us into this. What he said made a lot of sense. I wondered if maybe, without realizing it, I had begun carrying some of my grandmother’s burden on my shoulders ever since I found out I couldn’t deliver the letter to Chet. We need to deal with it and move on. He was right.
“Okay,” I said. “In that case, I guess you should start.”
Roy picked up the envelope on top, the one with the oldest cancellation dates, and ran his finger under the flap. The single sheet of paper he removed, once white or cream, had faded to a warm tan. He opened the paper, smoothing out the deep creases, and as I sat on the edge of my chair, he slowly began to read.
December 2, 1950
Dear Ruth,
I’m still in shock since returning from seeing you in Chicago. It’s one thing to read something in a letter and another to hear it in person. I can’t believe you’re really in love with him. I can see how you might be flattered by his attention. He’s a medical student. He’ll be a doctor someday. He’s different from anyone you’ve ever met. And you’re away from home for the first time in your life. But please examine your heart and be sure this is real.
Can you so easily turn your back on what we’ve had together? Can you really forget the past three years? We are so alike, you and I. We come from the same place; we want the same things. I know what you’re thinking before you know it. Can you say that about Henry? How can he possibly know you the way I do? Or love you the way I love you?
What you believe is a romance could be simply an infatuation that will wear thin in a few months. You and I have memories. We have a past—the farm and the summer blueberries, listening to the radio on your parents’ back porch, yo
ur easel and paints under the oak tree by the barn. I know we have a past and I thought we had a future. Please don’t jeopardize that. Take your time and think it over. Don’t do something you may regret. That’s all I ask. Remember, there is no one who loves you more than me.
Chet
I let out a long sigh. It felt strange hearing Roy read a letter from his uncle to my grandmother. It made me feel as though I needed to put myself in my grandmother’s place and apologize for her refusal to look at it, to acknowledge Chet’s feelings. But I wasn’t my grandmother and Roy wasn’t his uncle, so what good would it do?
“My uncle wasn’t the kind of a guy to give up easily,” Roy said, putting the letter back in its envelope and handing the next letter to me.
The second one was dated less than a week after the first. Chet asked my grandmother again to take her time and told her how much he loved her. Then he described his life that Maine winter.
I saw George Cleary and Ruby Swan walking up Hubbard Hill with a toboggan yesterday and I thought of you. I thought about last winter, you and I hiking up that same hill together, fresh snow crunching under our feet, our breath making clouds in the air. It’s cold here without you. The blueberry bushes are bathed in ice and all night the wind howls like a hungry animal. I miss you. I love you.
“That’s beautiful,” I said, my eyes misting.
Why, I wondered, couldn’t she have read these? Why couldn’t she have written him back? I felt terrible for Chet. I wished I could conjure up their spirits in a séance and let them speak to one another and say all the things they should have said when they were alive.
“I never knew my uncle was such a poet,” Roy said, glancing at me. “He certainly was in love with your grandmother.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say. I handed him the next letter, written in January of 1951.
I looked for you everywhere in town over Christmas week. I was hoping you would be home and that I’d catch a glimpse of you driving your father’s Studebaker or see you at the skating pond. Then I heard you’d gone to California to stay with Henry’s family for the holidays. My heart broke all over again. The winter is so long without you.
Two weeks later he wrote:
The Chapmans hung your painting on the wall of the café. It looks good in there. People point to it and talk about you winning the art contest. I’m glad you did the painting in the summer. It helps me remember what this place is like without all the snow.
In February, Chet told my grandmother he heard of her engagement to my grandfather. “I wonder how I can go on,” he wrote, “knowing you will be his wife, knowing he’s in the place where I long to be.”
In May, he wrote a letter from Vermont.
I moved here because I had to leave Beacon. My cousin Ben got me a job in a lumber mill. Although the spring is finally here, I couldn’t bear to be around the farm. Without you, its beauty is gone, and what I once felt for the land has left me. There are only painful memories. My father doesn’t understand. He still persists in wanting me to run the place. He says he’s getting old and it’s time for me to take over. But that was never the plan. You and I were supposed to do that together. Isn’t it odd how something you feel is so important becomes meaningless in the end?
I heard that you’re leaving Chicago and that next fall you’ll be in college in California. It makes me sad to know you will be even farther away. I also heard that you stopped painting. If that’s true, it’s a terrible mistake. You’re so talented, Ruth. Don’t ever stop painting.
By the time Roy finished reading, my heart was breaking for Chet. Gran had ignored every one of his letters and, in the end, he’d left his farm and his hometown all because of her.
I took the letter from Roy and read it silently. As I did, I began to realize what my grandmother’s apology was really about, what she felt so bad about.
“I know what Gran meant in her letter,” I said. “When she wrote that part about your uncle giving up the thing he loved the most.” I looked at Roy. “It was the farm.”
He nodded. “Yeah.” His voice was quiet. “I think you’re right.”
We sat there for a moment, both of us staring at the cedar box, and then Roy picked up the last envelope and opened it.
July 9, 1951
Dear Ruth,
I saw you last week in Beacon. Isn’t it strange that we were both back in town at the same time? I came to help my mother clean out the house. I don’t know if you heard, but they sold the farm.
I saw you with Henry, sitting on the seawall. You were holding his hand. At first, I only saw you from the back, but I knew right away it was you. I know every wave of your hair, the silhouette of your face, the tilt of your head. I watched you for a while. You turned to look at him and you laughed. You put your head on his shoulder. He pointed to something. I think it might have been a flying fish. I watched you for a while, and then I said good-bye to the girl I used to know.
For months I thought if I ever saw Henry or saw you with him, it would be the death of me. But it wasn’t. Maybe it’s because you looked so happy. I was glad for that. I want you to be happy. And maybe it’s because now I understand that what happened when you left Beacon was your destiny.
Chet
I began to cry, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I hate that she never read these. I wish I could apologize for her.”
Roy put down the letter. “Ellen, you don’t need to apologize. Your grandmother already did that. She wrote a letter. She sent you up here to deliver it. She wanted to make things right.” He leaned in a little closer. “If you want to know the truth, I feel sad for her.”
I wiped a tear away with my hand. “You do?”
“Yes,” he said. “She was still thinking about my uncle when she died. Doesn’t that tell you something? That she felt terrible about it to the very end. She carried all that inside of her for years. That’s awful.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way. How much of my grandmother’s life, I wondered, was wrapped up in the events that took place more than sixty years ago? “Maybe you’re right,” I said, picking up one of the envelopes and smoothing out the wrinkles. “But why did it have to be so complicated?”
Roy shook his head and gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. Because love is complicated, I guess.” He put the letters back in the box. “Here’s what’s really sad. Think about it—what did she do that was so wrong?”
He stared at me so intently, his blue eyes like pulsing stars, I thought he could see into my soul. I looked down.
“She fell in love with someone else, Ellen. That happens to people. I’m not saying it was no big deal that my uncle got hurt, but it’s part of life. He went on. Eventually he married my aunt. Things work out, you know.”
Roy put his hand on my arm. “Let’s let it go. They’ve made their peace with one another.”
“You’re right,” I said, committing to memory the feel of his hand. “They’ve made their peace.”
I turned the key and put the car in drive, but I didn’t press the gas pedal. I moved the gearshift back into park and sat there for a minute, in front of Roy’s house. What was it he’d said? She fell in love with someone else…that happens to people. Was he talking only about my grandmother, or was he also talking about me?
I glanced back at the house. Did Roy think I was in love with him? Did he really think that? I clasped the gearshift with my hand.
Well, I wasn’t…was I?
Chapter 18
Return to the Antler
I sat on the bed at the Victory Inn, a towel around me, my wet hair dripping from the shower. I was still thinking about my grandmother and Chet and the letters. Roy was right. It was time to let it go. They’d made their peace. The clock on the bedside table said five fifty. Hayden had been gone for hours with the New York Times people, but he’d finally left a message when I was in the shower and said he was on his way back.
I picked up a bottle of Caution to the Wind nail polish, gave it a shake, an
d began to brush the red liquid over the nails of my left foot while I went over the plan for the evening. Hayden and I would have cocktails with my mother in the lounge downstairs. Then he and I would have dinner at a cozy table I’d reserved in the dining room, and afterward we would come back upstairs for Champagne. I’d managed to get Paula to part with a few candles, and I had a bottle of Dom Pérignon chilling in an ice bucket. I would have preferred a 1996 vintage, but I settled for the ’98 because that was all they had at the Wine Cellar. I was all set. We’d enjoy our dinner, pop open the Champagne, get a little drunk, get a little romantic. It sounded pretty good. It sounded…
“Oh, great, I’m glad you’re getting ready.”
I looked up and saw Hayden breeze into the room.
“We’re meeting Jim and Tally for dinner,” he said, checking his watch. “At seven.”
“Who?” I put the cap back on the bottle.
He dropped the car keys on the bureau. “The Times reporter and photographer. I told them we’d have dinner with them.”
“Tonight?” He couldn’t mean tonight. Not the one night I wanted us to be alone, needed us to be alone.
Hayden opened the closet door. “I’m sorry, honey. I know it’s last-minute, but they really want to meet you and they didn’t have any plans, so…oh, by the way, Paula told me your mother’s here. That’s a surprise.”
“Yes, Mom’s here. She got into one of her worried modes because I didn’t call her back. You know how she—”
“We’ll take her with us,” he said, placing a pair of trousers and a shirt on the bed.
I turned to him. “Oh, Hayden, I was thinking maybe we could eat here tonight. You know, just a nice quiet little dinner in the dining room…by ourselves. We’re spending the whole morning with them tomorrow on the photo shoot and the interview. And I got a bottle of Dom.”
He sat down next to me on the bed and draped his arm around my shoulder. “Sweetheart, this is the kind of thing we have to do. I promised them we’d go out. They really want to see the town.” He brushed his hand across my cheek. “We’ll have the Champagne when we get back.
