to seeing you next Saturday” or “There’s a good play opening in March”—but in his hand they came alive. Only Theo could write the word “like” and have it look like love.
Ellie surveyed her grandfather’s swirling handwriting carefully. “Did they teach him this in school?”
“I don’t think so. We all learned to write the same way, like you.”
“I guess if you look carefully, you can see the regular handwriting hiding in there,” she said, squinting. “He just added some extra dips and swooshes.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.”
“It must have taken a long time to write them this way.”
“No, he was actually quite fast. He always preferred fountain pens, with the liquid ink kind of spreading on its own across the page.”
“Liquid ink?”
I got up and showed her one of Theo’s old pens from the desk, and she twirled it in her hand like an artifact before setting it down. I’d always thought that because he had to use pencils in his work, he was particular about writing letters with pens. A kind of letting go.
“What’s in the other box?”
“Oh, buttons, I believe. Remember what you said about putting them in a jar? I’ll get a vase or something.”
I stood and went into the kitchen, and left her alone with the box. That’s how sure I was of what was in it.
I returned with a stout glass vase to showcase the buttons, but buttons weren’t in Ellie’s hand. More letters were, tied with velvet ribbon, pink, my mother’s favorite color.
My heart sank; my mother had kept my father’s letters? Even after what he did to her? I admit, I wasn’t that thorough about sorting through papers after she died; it was a frantic time, with the children small and Theo always traveling, and Peter tugging on my sleeve. When I cleaned out her room at the nursing home, she had so little it broke my heart all over again. I just put all her shoe boxes and albums into a trunk; I vaguely recall running a dust cloth over them and lifting the lids just to make sure there were no moths or spiderwebs taking hold, but not reading or organizing anything.
“Who is P. S. Biddle?”
“My mother,” I said. “Her maiden name was Phoebe Scott Biddle, but her friends called her P.S. And this”—I untied the bundle and held up the first letter—“must be one of the love letters from my father.”
“Oh, let’s read it!”
“Go ahead,” I said and smiled. At least someone was deriving joy from their relationship.
“‘Dear P.S., It is a very cold spring in Boston. The lecture halls are drafty and some of the students attend class with mittens on. I’ll be done with exams soon and will meet you in Nantucket on Memorial Day. Tell your father I’m ready to fish. Love, Frank.’”
She looked up and pulled a face, twisted and grotesque, like a squashed pumpkin. “That’s not a love letter!”
I couldn’t help laughing. A whole new generation disappointed by my father!
“Well, he signed it ‘love,’” I countered.
Naturally, my cynicism allowed me to read deeply between his lines—male students didn’t wear mittens. My father was staring at a pretty girl wearing angora mittens, while my mother was waiting patiently for him. Why, he’d likely cheated on her the entire length of their relationship, the cad!
“Maybe the rest of them are better,” she said.
I shrugged. My father had never been one to gush over anything. Rather like Theo, now that I thought about it, always stammering and at a loss for anything but the plainest words.
“Grandma, some of these have different handwriting.”
I took a faded envelope from her hand and squinted at the return address. Jay Stephens. The handwriting was small and even, the envelope bulkier than the ones from my father.
Ellie took out three folded sheets and began to read to herself. Her lips moved ever so slightly, a habit I’d have to work on with her; she was getting too old to do that. Suddenly she started to smile.
“This is a love letter!”
“Oh, really,” I said, disbelievingly.
She started to read, in that slightly awkward, halting way children do.
“‘Darling P.S., do your initials stand for “pretty sweet”? Or “perfectly stellar” or “phenomenally smart,” or “particularly suc-cu-lent”?’”
“Let me see that,” I said briskly, reaching out to pluck it from her hands.
She yanked it away, laughing, and continued to read. “ ‘In my book, you’re all four. Seeing you biking into ’Sconset with that basket of roses—I can’t get the image out of my mind. I have half