With Love from London(3)

I wipe the foggy window with the sleeve of my jacket, remembering how hard it was after she left. Dad had done his best, but he could never fill her shoes. No one could.

Books numbed the pain. Inside their grand adventures I could walk alongside a myriad of characters with lives as complicated as mine.

After college, I got my master’s degree in library science, with a particular interest in rare antique books. Call me a first-rate nerd, but I loved spending my days at the circulation desk of the local library, amid the heavenly scent of books, while my ambitious husband finished law school and set out to climb the corporate ladder. The only ladder I was interested in climbing, however, was the one in the vintage book section.

A library is a world unto itself—with its own rhythm section, even, the clatter of hardback books being stacked and shelved, the click of a stamp pressed to a due date, mothers shushing their children, readers tiptoeing from one bookcase to another, discovering unexpected treasures, losing track of time.

Anyway, after I found out about Nick’s affair, I took refuge in the library—my favorite little branch in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood—where I could disappear. I raced to the fiction section and sank into the threadbare chair in the far corner and wept and wept and wept. When there were no more tears, I read.

On our last night together, I made chicken parmigiana, and he told me it was the best he’d ever had. Then we watched an episode of Mad Men, and when it was over, he kissed me good night. The next morning, I opened my eyes and assumed the empty space beside me meant he’d left early for work as he did so often. But then, on my bedside table, I found a handwritten note that said nothing, and everything.


Val,

I’m so sorry. I always will be.



Nick



My heart sank, because I knew. Perhaps I’d known all along. But there it was, his handwriting in stark black ink. I’d always loved the curve of his s’s—with the little squiggles on the tail—but they looked foreign to me now, cruel even, as if they were calligraphic co-conspirators in this grave turn of events. I steadied myself as I let the words marinate in my mind until the reality of the situation finally set in: Nick was leaving me.

When the phone rang a few minutes later, I answered it cautiously.

“Yes, hello.” It was a man—with a British accent. “I’m looking for a Ms. Valentina Baker.”

“This is,” I said, rubbing my eyes as a chilly draft seeped through the bedroom window. “What is this about?”

“It’s about your mother, Eloise Baker.”

My eyes widened as I sat up in bed. I hadn’t heard anyone say her name in…so long, and it had been more than twenty years since I last saw her. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“James Whitaker. I work for Bevins and Associates in London. We’re an estate-planning firm; your mother was one of our clients.”

“Your mother.”

My mother.

It was as if this stranger on the phone had produced a key to a vault of dusty old memories. I closed my eyes tightly, but like meddling ghosts, they demanded my attention. And there she was, my mother, on the last morning I ever saw her. She was standing at the base of the stairs, holding her arms out to me. I studied her beautiful face, with those chiseled features and arresting, crystal-blue eyes. She wore a long, flowy pale blue dress, with a ruffle at the hem.

The man on the phone cleared his throat, and the image disintegrated like a popped bubble. “I’m sorry, but I must relay some upsetting news,” he continued. “Your mother…she…passed away last Tuesday after a battle with ovarian cancer. However, I’m told that her passing was peaceful and painless.”

I swallowed hard. My arms and legs felt numb—foreign limbs connected to my despondent body. My heart beat so loudly, it was the only thing I could hear. How could she be dead? It seemed so…selfish. As if her last breath was a perfectly executed final blow—to me. While it’s true I’d long since given up on the idea of our reunion, I suppose a small part of me believed it might happen. Someday. The way it turns out in books, when the pain of the past is miraculously healed in the final pages—wrongs righted with the blot of a handkerchief, heartache mended with a needle and thread. I was supposed to have that ending. But, no, mine would be a tragic one: Nick’s letter, and now this. I once read a book about a woman who was struck by lightning three times in one year. It was as if it hunted her.

No, no, no. I blinked back tears. Was I dreaming? Was it all a nightmare?

As Whitaker continued speaking, I fell further into disbelief. I listened, but his words sounded garbled and extraneous.

“Your mother has designated you as the sole heir to her estate. This includes the property she owns in Primrose Hill—which is a fine neighborhood in London, always holds its values. The building is old, but quite comfortable. There are two flats, on the first and second floors. The bookstore is on the ground floor.”

I shook my head, his words finally sinking in. “The…bookstore?”





London, England

January 11, 1968



“You look perfect, El,” my best friend, Millie, reassured me. “The question is, will he be good enough for you?” She tucked her arm around my waist and leaned her head against my shoulder, both of us staring into the hallway mirror in our shared flat.