Louisa's Letters Home — October 1946

October 22, 1946

Dearest Catherine,

Thank you for your letter and the clipping about Cousin Helen's wedding. She married well, as I always thought she would. Please send my congratulations when you see her, and tell her the roses were a lovely choice for October. Though I have never understood why Virginia brides insist on roses when the chrysanthemums are at their best that time of year. But then, Virginia brides have never consulted me, and I suppose they never shall.

We are well here. The fall shipping is done and Degarrin is pleased with the numbers, though he would not say so in precisely those words, because saying he is pleased would require him to concede that something has met his expectations, and I have been married to the man for twenty-five years and can count on one hand the number of times he has conceded that. The cattle went to Kansas City and the check arrived and the ranch goes on. That is what the ranch does. It goes on.

I am writing because I want to tell you about Sophie, and because I do not know how to tell you, and because the not telling is becoming its own kind of weight that I carry around the house, and the house is large enough for most things but not, it turns out, for this.

The young man is gone. Michael and I handled it. I will not go into the details because the details would distress you and because, frankly, they distress me, and putting them on paper would make them more real than I can manage at present. What I will say is this: there was a young man on the crew, a returning soldier, and Sophie developed an attachment to him that was not appropriate given the circumstances and not possible given who she is and who he is and the considerable distance between those two facts. Michael and I spoke with him, and he left. He left without incident and without ugliness, and I will say this for him, he behaved well at the end. Better than I expected. Perhaps better than I deserved.

Sophie has gone to Albuquerque. She is enrolled at the University and living with Tessa, who is the best possible person for her right now, because Tessa does not push and does not pry and has the good sense to let wounded creatures heal in their own time. Sophie is adjusting. These things take time. She is young, and the young are resilient, and what feels like the end of the world at nineteen feels like a chapter by twenty-five.

I believe that with all my heart, Catherine. I have to believe it.

What I did not tell you, and what I do not quite know how to tell you even now, is that the summer held more than this one trouble. A young man on the crew was killed in an accident. His name was Danny Parks. He was from Tennessee, and he was a wonderful young man, quiet and kind and the best rider on the ranch, and he died in the branding pen on a clear day in June when everything was going right and then suddenly was not. I cannot write about how it happened. I can tell you that Sophie was there, and that all of us were there, and that it was the worst day of my life, and I have had days that I thought were bad.

I planted roses over his memorial. Pink and red. They will bloom in the spring, if I have anything to say about it, and I have quite a lot to say about most things, as you well know.

So you see, Catherine, it has been a summer. Sophie lost a friend and then she lost — well, she lost the other thing, the attachment, and she has gone to Albuquerque to put herself back together, and I am here at Casa Blanca with my husband and my roses and my conviction that we did the only thing parents could do, and I would be grateful if you would write back and tell me I am right, because I find that I need to hear it from someone who is not me.

The aspens on the mesa turned early this year. Gold, against the blue. It is almost impossibly beautiful, this country, even when it has cost you something you did not know you would have to pay.

Your loving sister, Louisa