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“Eventually, yeah, her parents and her two brothers and their wives and kids, too. It was pretty complicated. It took calling in a favor from Henry Kissinger to get them all visas to the States. Bà was hoping they’d settle in Albany, but her parents couldn’t take the cold. They all ended up in Los Angeles. My mom took me and my brother and sister out there, once, when we were kids, to meet our cousins. I remember feeling really left out because we didn’t speak Vietnamese.”
“This next letter is about how terrible Hazel felt when your grandfather died.”
When he’s done reading it, Sam says, “Yeah, she felt so bad she went to a fucking parade.”
I wince. Hazel and Evelyn spotting Wren at the pride parade was one of my favorite moments. “You know that’s not how it was, Sam.”
He sighs. “I know, Audrey. I’m sorry. This is a lot for me to take in.”
“The last two letters don’t have anything in them about Billy or Mai, if that helps.”
Sam picks up an envelope, then puts it down. “Hey, does that breakfast offer still stand?”
“Absolutely. I’m starving, actually.”
“How about I cook us some eggs while you sum up these letters for me?”
He scrambles eggs with a pinch of dill and a spoonful of cottage cheese while I toast sourdough bread and tell him about Evelyn’s forgotten marriage proposal. I describe the last letter, too, the one from September 22, 2015.
“That’s weird,” Sam says, handing me a plate.
“What’s weird about Evelyn having to go into a nursing home?” I ask, my mouth full. “These are the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever eaten, by the way.”
“Thanks. I just meant the date of the letter. September twenty-second is my birthday.”
“That’s a few days before the Homestead Festival. You never told me.”
Sam shrugs. “You coming with me was my present.”
There’s a painful moment as we’re both reminded of the months of silence that followed our kiss. I breathe in. I breathe out. It passes.
“Hey,” Sam says, “do you think I could get a copy of those letters?”
“My printer has a scanner,” I say. “You want to hang out while I make copies for you?”
“I can’t,” Sam says, checking the time. “I’m leading a workshop up in Fort Edward today. Maybe I can stop back after?”
“Sounds good.”
Our plates are cleared in five minutes flat. Sam starts washing them, and the pan, too. I like seeing him at my sink so much I don’t mention one of the cabinet panels hides a dishwasher.
“You must be eager to tell your family about this.”
“I am, yeah,” Sam says, “but not yet. I kind of want to keep all this to myself for a minute, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” I say, thinking of how long I left that police report unopened.
“What I’d really like is to see the house where my grandfather grew up. Do you think anyone’s living there?”
“I could ask my real estate agent, Rhonda Tate.” I get why Sam wants to see the place. Site visits are crucial for adding detail to a scene. I didn’t do that for my mother, though. For all the years I lived in Kenosha after she died, I never once retraced her path through the dunes.
“Is that the same Rhonda who kept the bookshop open when Hazel and Evelyn went to New York?”
“Must be. If they were such good friends, I bet she’ll know what happened to the house.”
“That’d be cool.” Sam dries the washed pan and sets it on the stove. “You’d come with me, right?”
“To see Hazel’s house?” I don’t want to horn in on Sam’s ancestral quest, but the confluence of family history and old houses is an invitation too irresistible to miss. “Absolutely, if you want me to.”
