Page 70 of Key West Homecoming

“She’s been magnificent,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here without her. I probably wouldn’t be anywhere without her, but I absolutely hate drinking water.”

Emma smiled, “But it’s good for you.”

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

“Rebecca seems wonderful.”

“She is. She had a full patient load this morning and still made sure she was home before you arrived. She would tell me you would have been perfectly willing to come to my hospital room if that had been necessary, and she’d be right. But it means something to me that we can do this here.”

He glanced at the tea tray.

“I have, apparently, been arranging this too many times for her liking.”

Emma tried not to smile.

“Have you?”

“I don’t know if Rebecca mentioned it.”

“She didn’t.”

“My daughter is a very discreet woman.”

Emma laughed, and Edmund poured her tea. He handed her the sugar bowl and a small pitcher of milk without asking what she wanted and waited while she added a little milk.

“There was a time when I’d sneak candy into my room, but the sugar police put a stop to that.”

“I used to put sugar in my tea, but not anymore. It isn’t good for you.”

Edmund looked surprised and then laughed. “You too?”

Emma shrugged. “Me too.”

His face turned serious. “I want to tell you the whole story today,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about where to begin, but I don’t think there’s a graceful way to do it. I’m going to start at the beginning, and if I get anything out of order, you’ll have to forgive me.”

“All right.”

Edmund rested both hands around his cup.

“Your grandmother and I were together for eight and a half years. I told you that yesterday, but what I didn’t tell you is that they were the happiest years of my life. I say that as a man who was married for forty-one years to a woman I loved, who has a daughter I’ve loved every day of her life, and who spent forty years teaching a subject I found endlessly beautiful. Gloria was the surprise that came at the end of all of it.”

Emma smiled.

Edmund picked up his cup, then set it down again without drinking.

“We met the way I told you yesterday, at those terrible mailboxes. After that, we had coffee together almost every afternoon for eight and a half years. She read to me, and I read to her. We took the train to Providence five or six times to visit Rebecca and the girls. We spent Christmases together. Gloria came to my seventieth birthday party and told everyone she was ninety percent responsible for keeping me alive that year, which was probably accurate.”

Emma could picture her saying it.

“She had a laugh, Emma. I’m not sure if you remember that. It was low and warm and came from somewhere deep in her chest. When she laughed at something you said, she made you feel as though you’d done something wonderful.”

Emma’s smile widened.

“I once tried to discuss a mystery novel with her that I hadn’t actually finished. She looked at me over her reading glasses and said, ‘Edmund, you’re a professor of Classics. It’s a mystery novel. You can admit you skimmed the middle.’ Then she laughed at me until I admitted it.”

“What did you do?”

“I went back and read the middle.”