I couldn’t tell him then. I couldn’t explain. I looked down at my feet. “Miles, I adore you,” I’d said. “I truly do. And in another time, in another place, maybe it could have been you and me. But I am marrying Reid.” I looked up at him again. “I will never forget you, Miles. I will maybe even always wonder what could have been. But this is how it has to be.”
His face fell. “If you’re sure, Barbara, then I know I cannot change your mind. But I wish it had been me.” Despite his sadness, he still took my hand. I let him this time. He placed something precious, something meaningful, something he could only give once, into it.
“To remember me by,” he had said.
And I had. I had remembered.
Now, on my porch, it was finally time to make amends. “There were so many times after that night that I wanted to write to you, that I wanted to explain,” I said softly.
He smiled. “So you weren’t placating me? I truly meant something to you?”
“Of course you did, Miles.”
“And I still do?” The fear in his eyes gave away how hard this was for him.
Miles was not a man of subtlety. He was a man of action, of wearing his heart on his sleeve, consequences be damned. I touched his hand gently. Was I letting him down for myself? Or for the girls? Did it matter?
“Miles, you have been such a surprise. You have been alone for so many years now, but Reid hasn’t even been gone a year and a half. I have so much to think about.”
He nodded sadly and squeezed my hand. “I understand.”
My heart felt heavy with pain and longing. But it was too hard; it was too complicated. I was too old to start over again. I was letting him down easy. It was kinder this way.
“Barbara,” Miles said, not even turning to look at me. “All those years ago, you said that maybe in another time, in another place, it could have been you and me. Maybe that time and place is here and now.” And then he was gone, as if our conversation had never even happened. And I was left, my heart beating through my chest, remembering, feeling, wondering if maybe he was right.
I never would have imagined that I would be standing face-to-face with the difficult and confusing inner workings of love again at my age—and certainly not with a man who had vanished from my life only to reappear decades later. But here we were. I needed to step away from this, gain some perspective. Lucky for me, there was nothing like the crisp, cool mountain air of Asheville to help a woman feel like her largest problems could be carried away on a white cloud. As I dropped my bags into the open trunk of my car, I let my biggest fear sink in: Was I trying to use this new relationship to forget Reid?
No. Of course not. Reid was the single best decision I ever made. But things change. Reid was gone. Julia hadn’t gotten married. I didn’t know what to say to Miles. And then there was that wedding veil…
EDITH A Leap of Faith
October 22, 1925
Edith felt like the combination of her nerves and excitement could fill up her room at Brown’s Hotel in London. Well, room was an understatement. Just as Eleanor Roosevelt had said, the royal suite was so vast that Edith could scarcely find herself, much less her possessions. It seemed a shame to have such a large space for just herself. The bridegroom, in accordance with tradition, had stayed at Claridge’s so they wouldn’t see each other until the day of the wedding.
“Did you know that Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book here?” Cornelia asked.
Edith searched her mind, which was racing. “I don’t think I did.”
Cornelia caught her mother’s eye in the mirror. “Are you nervous?”
Edith laughed. Did women in their early fifties still get nervous? She supposed so. “I don’t think nervous is the word for it. Anticipatory, maybe?”
“Tired is probably more like it,” Cornelia said, yawning. “I don’t know why you two insisted on getting married so frightfully early in the morning when we’re all still adjusting to the time change.”
Edith smiled sarcastically. Her daughter knew full well they were getting married so early this morning in an attempt to dodge the press. “I simply could not wait one more moment to become a Gerry,” she said.
“While I,” Cornelia responded, “would have loved nothing more than to have remained a Vanderbilt forever.”
Edith rolled her eyes.
“It’s a shame you aren’t going to wear the family veil,” Cornelia quipped, lounging on her mother’s bed as Edith stood in front of the mirror, fussing with her collar. They both laughed, as that would have been terribly inappropriate for a second wedding.
“Can you imagine the headlines?” Edith asked, rolling her eyes.
Edith smiled, sweet memories of her first wedding day washing over her. She cleared her throat and Cornelia sat up, alarmed at the tears that had come to her mother’s eyes. “Oh, Mother, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I know how special the veil is to you.”
Edith smiled through her tears, thinking of the veil that linked her to her mother, sisters, and daughter. All of a sudden, going into a new marriage without it made her feel terribly alone. “This was always going to be a difficult day, but I will try to make it a happy one, too,” she said.
Cornelia got up off the bed and opened her mother’s generous traveling trunk, which Emma hadn’t completely unpacked. She ran her fingers across the paint that spelled out the initials E.S.D. Her mother’s original traveling trunk, from her days as a Dresser girl, was still perfectly intact. Cornelia selected a chic felt hat from atop the purple velvet–lined shelf. Then, just as her mother had done for her only last year, she placed the final touch for the day on her head.
“Ten-twenty-two is the most perfect wedding date I can imagine,” Cornelia said. “It is a date that can’t help but manifest dreams into reality. And here we are.”
Edith tried to stop the alarm bells in her head from clanging—she was none too thrilled with this numerology nonsense Cornelia had found an interest in. It wasn’t uncommon for women of their set to travel often, to set up homes in multiple places, but Edith didn’t feel that Cornelia’s New York friends—her artist set—were the best influence. Still, could a little silliness with numbers be harmful? Well, Reverend Swope, Edith’s—and George’s at one point—most trusted spiritual advisor was concerned. But, wanting to keep the peace, and knowing Cornelia would do what she wanted regardless, Edith took the bait. “And why is that?”
“The combination of one, zero, and a pair of twos means that you are going to be very happy in love. And twenty-two is a powerful indicator of cooperation and balance in a relationship,” Cornelia said as she adjusted the hat on her mother’s head.
In spite of herself, Edith smiled. It did make her feel a little better that the numbers were on her side, whatever that meant.
“There,” Cornelia said, admiring her mother. “All set for me to walk you down the aisle.”
When mother and daughter pulled up to the register office less than half an hour later, Peter looked every bit the senator in his refined derby hat and overcoat. “I’m not going to waste time taking my coat off, you know,” he said as he kissed his bride hello. “I’m not living one more minute not married to you.”