palm without flinching in pain. We could sit together in his car, in the quiet comfort of that touch, for many minutes at a time.
I never saw more sunrises in my life than I did with him.
If by doing that—by holding his hand all those times, as the sun came up—I took something away from your mother, or from you, I beg your forgiveness.
But I don’t think I did.
So here we are, Angela.
I am sorry to hear about your mother’s death. You have my condolences. I am glad to hear that she lived a long life. I hope she had a good life, and a peaceful death. I hope that your heart is strong within your grieving.
I also want to say that I’m so glad you were able to track me down. Thank God I’m still living at the L’Atelier building! That’s the good thing about never changing your name or your address, I suppose. People always know where to find you.
Although I should tell you that L’Atelier is not a bridal boutique anymore, but a coffee and juice shop that Nathan Lowtsky runs. The building itself belongs to me, though. Marjorie left it to me after her death thirteen years ago, knowing that I would do a better job than Nathan at managing the property. So she put things entirely in my hands and I’ve taken good care of the place. I was the one who helped Nathan to get his little business up and running, too. He needed all the help he could get, believe me. Nathan, dear as he is, will never set the world on fire. But I do love him. He has always called me his “other mother.” I’m happy to have his affection and care. In fact, I am probably as embarrassingly healthy as I am for my ripe old age because he tends to me. And I tend to him, as well. We are good to each other.
So this is why I am still here—still in the same place I’ve lived since 1950.
Thank you for coming to look for me, Angela.
Thank you for asking me for the truth.
I have told you all of it.
I will sign off now, but there’s one more thing I want to say.
Long ago, Edna Parker Watson told me that I would never be an interesting person. She may have been right about that. That’s not mine to judge, or to know. But she also said that I was the worst sort of female—namely, the type of woman who cannot be a friend to another woman, because she will always be “playing with toys that are not her own.” In this regard, Edna was wrong. Over the years, I’ve been a good friend to a great many women.
I used to say that there were only two things I was ever good at: sewing and sex. But I have been selling myself short all this while, because the fact is that I am also very good at being a friend.
I’m telling you all this, Angela, because I am offering my friendship to you, if you would ever care to have it.
I don’t know whether my friendship would interest you. You may never want to have anything to do with me, after reading all this. You may find me a despicable woman. That would be understandable. I don’t happen to think I’m despicable (I don’t think anyone is, anymore), but I will leave it to you to decide for yourself.
But do give my offer some thought, is my respectful suggestion.
You see, all the while that I’ve been writing these pages to you, I have been imagining you in my mind as a young woman. To me, you will always be that flinty, smart, no-nonsense, twenty-nine-year-old feminist who walked into my bridal shop in 1971. But I’m grasping only now that you’re not a young woman anymore. By my calculations, you are almost seventy. And I’m not young either, obviously.
This is what I’ve found about life, as I’ve gotten older: you start to lose people, Angela. It’s not that there is ever a shortage of people—oh, heavens no. It is merely that—as the years pass—there comes to be a terrible shortage of your people. The ones you loved. The ones who knew the people that you both loved. The ones who know your whole history.
Those people start to be plucked away by death, and they are awfully hard to replace after they go. After a certain age, it can become difficult to