The Letters, Spring 1948

“Sophie's letter arrived on a Thursday afternoon in March, tucked between a feed bill and a circular from the Hereford Association. Louisa saw the handwriting and set the other mail aside. She took it to the sitting room, where the afternoon light came through the west windows and fell across the armchair in a long warm stripe. She did not open it immediately. Louisa had developed a habit with Sophie's letters that she was not proud of and could not seem to break, which was to hold them for a moment before reading, steeling herself for whatever was inside. This was unfair to Sophie, who had never once written anything alarming. Sophie's letters were pleasant and informative and regular, arriving once every two or three weeks with news of her classes and her social life and the weather in Albuquerque, which Sophie described in the careful detail of someone who understood that her mother required more than "fine." The letters had been coming for nearly two years now, and they had settled into a pattern that Louisa could almost describe as comfortable.”

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