by Mae Wood
“I agree. Is it weirder to start talking to a stranger in a bar or because the cosmos aligned so that you meet the descendant of a woman your great-grandfather fell in love with over a hundred years ago?”
“Bar. I hate small talk.”
“Exactly.”
“So it’s the way we met? I’ve been texting your sister proof of life pictures, but I can loop in Patrick, if that makes everyone happier.”
“It wouldn’t make me happier. And he and I have been texting, so he knows I’m alive.”
“You didn’t answer my question, Ali,” he said, the humor gone from his voice. “Did I do something to upset him?”
“Other than breathe?”
“Other than breathe or be divorced,” he said with a nod. “Can’t help either of them and I don’t plan on stopping breathing any time soon.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said with a smile, the ease of being with him letting me talk freely. “Patrick worries about me. I’m not delicate or breakable or anything like that, but despite our age gap and the boy-girl thing, we’ve always been close. He looks out for me. I can’t tell him to stop. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve told him a million times, but that’s the way he is.”
“And I worry him,” said Ben.
“You’re an unknown,” I said, taking a moment before deciding to tell Ben about Patrick’s other concern, which, like the breathing thing, he couldn’t do much about. “He’s worried that your health—” I could sense Ben’s body tensing. Thompson shoved his head over the center console to check on Ben and then went back to lying down in the back seat. “It doesn’t bother me. Your diabetes. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
“It should bother you, Ali. It’s a hassle.”
“No, it shouldn’t. Hear me out. I know some things can’t be fixed, but I do know some can be made better and that we can live even with the less-than-perfect parts. And if you’d tell a little boy that he’s somehow worth less because he was born with a hearing deficiency, then we’ve got a problem that we won’t ever be able to get past. Because that’s not right in any sense. You’re not worth less because you need insulin and Thompson. You’re not worth less because you wear those sexy Clark Kent glasses. And I’m not worth less because—”
“Ali…” His voice was calm and he took my right hand in his. “I get it. I get what you’re saying.”
“Because I’m ten pounds overweight and have a crazy sweet tooth?” I said, finishing my rant with a joke, hoping to show him how much I cared for him. I glanced over at him, pulling my eyes away from the dimple carved in his cheek and forcing them back on the road in front of us.
“I was going to go with ‘amazing,’ but take your pick,” he said.
As we drove, we talked more, talked about things that I’d only talked about with my sister after she and I had shared a bottle of wine, and we settled back into being us. Being comfortable and happy and right. We wound through the park roads until we found a picnic area to enjoy the lunch we’d bought from a grocery store that morning.
“I know we don’t really know each other, but I feel like I’ve known you forever,” he said, snapping closed the lid of the now empty plastic salad container.
“I know. I’m glad to find someone who doesn’t mind my stinky salt and vinegar potato chips,” I said, smiling and grabbing a few more chips from the bag I’d bought.
“It’s the strangest thing, and I don’t think it’s the chips, and I hope I’m not reading this thing between us wrong.”
“You’re not reading it wrong on my end,” I assured him, feeling so relieved at finally being able to talk about the connection between us.
“Think it’s genetics?” He laughed, taking a swig from his water bottle before capping it.
“What’s genetics?” I asked, lost at his comment.
“That something in our makeup got us to this place. That Kellers and—what was Alice’s maiden name?”
“Hirshhorn.” I balled up the wax paper that had held my turkey sandwich and began to pack up our things.
“Yeah, that Kellers and Hirshhorns have some sort of genetic affinity for each other? Because I’ve never been a believer in fate or destiny or anything like that.”
I stilled my hands and looked at him. I really looked at him. I looked at the man in front of me in the bright spring sunshine, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, wearing a T-shirt that had terrific spelled out in a spider web, his dimple letting me know he was truly happy, and I knew I could do this. I knew that we would do this. That we were in this place together.
“Me either,” I confessed. “It’s always been work.”
“Yeah. The same. And I keep thinking about you and how this hasn’t been work. It’s like the opposite of work. It’s easy. Wait, that’s the wrong word. Easy sounds bad.”
“No, it’s not. This is easy.”
“Good. I’m glad. And you probably don’t want to hear about my ex-wife, but that was work from the day we met. I chased her and—oh, this isn’t going well and I need to shut up.”
“It’s going fine. Keep going.” Because I wanted to hear this from him. I wanted the confidence of hearing him say that we were in the same space. That this wasn’t my wild imagination. That this was real.
“Anyway, it was work.”
“I get that. I do.”
“I’m not scared of work, and I know you aren’t either, Madame Surgeon, but it’s nice not to have to work so damn hard.”
By the time we stood on the rim of the park’s canyon in the fading daylight, I couldn’t remember my life without him in it.
“Welcome to Coeur d’Alene,” he said from the passenger seat the next day.
“You’ve been here before?” I asked, surprised, because other than Yellowstone, the rest of the trip had been new to both of us.
“Maybe in another lifetime or alternate universe or maybe it’s my first time.” I looked over and he was tapping away on his phone. “I think this is near where Elliott got on the train when he met Alice. Take the next exit. There’s a park near the lake and maybe we can let Thompson roam a bit.” He called out directions and the lake appeared before us. Deep blue and sparkling in the afternoon.
“This has been a great trip,” I said, picking up a smooth flat stone and skipping it across the surface of the lake as Ben and Thompson waded in the water.
“Four days and you’re just now accepting that we’re having fun?” he teased, that dimple I loved saying hello. “We always have fun.”
“That we do. And we’ve got all of tomorrow too,” I said, a little sad that our road trip was coming to an end and the real world was rushing toward us.
“Sure about that?”
“Yeah, I mean, unless you’ve got an idea about somewhere else to explore,” I called to him. “No doubt the movers can hold my stuff for the right price. I’ve still got a week until I’m due at work and I don’t know when I’ll get my next vacation.”
He stretched out a hand to me, inviting me in the water, and I stepped to join him, lacing our fingers together, the cool water a contrast to the bone-deep warmth I felt in his presence.
“Ali, I’ve finally got one that is a deal breaker,” he said. Inches from me, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Now or forever?”
“Both,” I said, and under the bright sun, we kissed with Thompson splashing in the water around our feet.
Thirty-eight
Elliott
July 1937
He walks the waking streets of New York. From the steps of the Sherry-Netherland, he wouldn’t know of the crisis. No visible breadlines on the Upper East Side. Summer is here in the city and as stifling as the locals think it is, it’s not Singapore. His meetings don’t begin until the afternoon, so he strolls through the park. The three weeks of travel since they’d left home have him discombobulated. He skirts the edge of the lake, the city all around, reciting all of the stops between here and home—London, Paris, Brindisi, Athens, Alexandria, Cairo, Gaza, Baghdad
, Basra, Kuwait, Bahrain, Sharjah, Gwadar, Karachi, Jodhpur, Delhi, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Calcutta, Akgats, Rangoon, Bangkok and Alor Setar.
The walking clears his head and he begins to look for breakfast. Ten years ago was the last time he’d made this trek around the world, and then it was to be promoted to run the Asia division. Now he is back, this time to talk of war and alliances and plans to steady the company’s future amid quickly shifting winds. A Japanese embargo is likely, but there is no doubt that even if the company ignored Japan, Japan would be paying keen attention to the company’s oil wells and production facilities throughout the region.
He finds a narrow sidewalk café, and places his order with the server. He feels still as the world wakes up in a hurry around him. He removes his glasses and places them on the table, closing his eyes and turning his face toward the sun. The weeks of travel have made him dull and gray. The life in his limbs slowly returns as he basks in the sunshine. He’s pulled from his languor as he feels eyes upon him. He opens his own eyes and returns his glasses to rest on the bridge of his nose.
He looks and there she is. On the other side of the hedge that separates the café from the entrance to a hotel. His breath catches in his chest. His heart seizes. The travel must have exhausted him more than he thought. Alice. In New York. Not a dozen feet from him. He blinks slowly to right himself, to gather his wits.
No, it is her.
The blue eyes that still appear in his dreams. The face he studied every night before he fell asleep for years is now softer with age.
It is absolutely his Alice.
He pushes to a stand and his napkin falls unnoticed from his lap to the ground. The only thing in the world he sees is her. He opens his mouth to speak, but he cannot find words. His mouth is dry and he’s half convinced that this is some dream, some exhaustion-induced hallucination.
“Alice, sweetheart.” She turns away from Elliott and toward a man, tall and neatly dressed with a head full of gray hair. “The concierge is going to get us tickets to Babes in Arms for this evening, if he can. If not, it will be tomorrow.”
Elliott knows in an instant. Her husband. Of course, it’s her husband. Did Elliott ever know his name? He can’t recall, but the hurt at her choosing another—time didn’t heal that wound entirely. And while it’s far from fresh and gaping, it remains a tender pink scar.
Her profile is to him and he’s back on that train, studying her in secret. Somewhere in Idaho, in an observation car. Fifteen years ago? Twenty? Twenty-five? A lifetime ago and yesterday at the same time.
He shakes his head, a wide smile pinching his cheeks, and he takes a half step toward her when he is stopped by her blue eyes focused on him. A sweet smile on the lips that he has longed to kiss, and her right hand raised to her chest in surprise, which she double taps, and a few words mouthed at him. He tries to decipher the unsaid words. He recognizes his own name on her lips.
“Elliott. Always.”
He takes another step to her, now urgently needing to speak with her, to hold her, to kiss her, to burn down his entire world if it means that he can be with her again. She slightly shakes her head, takes her husband’s arm and disappears down the bustling sidewalk.
“Your ice water and coffee, sir,” says the waiter. “Is everything fine?”
“Yes,” replies Elliott after a beat, retaking his seat. “All is well.”
His family is with him this trip. He and Pearl will settle their boys into schools in New Hampshire, before retracing their path around the world. They will stay in Paris this time. For a week. See the sights. It will be his first real visit. They will attend the opera and stroll along the banks of the Seine at twilight, and then he will tell Alice all about it in the letters that he still writes her in his heart.
Author’s Note
On September 1, 1915, Erwin F. K. stepped aboard a train bound for Seattle, Washington, and settled in the observation car. He noticed a woman select a magazine from a stand and was taken by her. That evening, there was a mix-up with their Pullman berths and Erwin met my great-grandmother.
Five days later, he sailed for the Philippines and she remained in Seattle.
Over four long years and throughout the tumult of the First World War, he wrote her over forty letters. The last letter is postmarked a few months before my great-grandmother married my great-grandfather. And, although I wouldn’t be here if Erwin had married my great-grandmother, my heart broke for Erwin when I read that letter.
I first found the box of Erwin’s letters one summer when I was in high school. I spent a lazy day lying on the shag carpeting of my grandparents’ living room floor, reading every last word Erwin wrote and imagining his life.
My grandmother explained they were letters that her mother had kept and she couldn’t get rid of them, but she’d never read them herself.
While cleaning out the house after my grandmother’s passing, my mother found the box of letters, and the letters came to live with me. They were the one thing I’d wanted from the house. Though, like Ali in the book, I got a lot more things from my grandmother’s house, including the dresser with a secret drawer that makes an appearance in the story.
Genealogy doesn’t contain Erwin’s letters. Instead, I used Erwin and his letters as a jumping-off point for creating Elliott, and Elliott’s letters to Alice.
But how do I know that Erwin met my great-grandmother on September 1, 1915 on a train bound for Seattle?
Luckily, on August 29, 1916, when they’d been separated a year, Erwin wrote a letter reminiscing about how they’d met. Borrowing details from Erwin’s letters and expanding upon them and changing them has been a joy. I truly wish I’d been able to meet him.
One day I’d love to share Erwin’s letters with his descendants. I’d also love to share the photographs that he sent to my great-grandmother. I’ve tried my own hand at genealogical research, and I haven't been able to locate Erwin’s living descendants, but I’m not giving up.
Regardless of whether I ever find his family, Erwin will continue to live in my imagination, and I’ll continue to treasure his letters.
I hope you enjoyed Genealogy, and that it warms your heart and inspires you to learn about the people in your life and those who came before you.
Please consider leaving a review where you purchased this book.
XO - Mae
[email protected]
P.S. - Sign up for my newsletter to learn about my upcoming work, the research behind Genealogy, and sneak peeks. Visit www.maewood.com to find out how to read more letters from Elliott to Alice for free.
Discussion guide
Suggested questions for a book club discussion or to think through on your own after reading Genealogy.
A printable version of this discussion guide is available at www.maewood.com
1.Elliott and Alice are kept apart by forces outside of their control and the fact that communication and travel in the early 20th century were too onerous to allow for long-distance love. Is their tragic love story a product of its time, or could modern couples similarly find themselves torn apart—despite cell phones, social media, intercontinental flights, and the like? What would a modern equivalent look like?
2.Is it possible to fall in love as quickly as Elliott and Alice did? Was their connection truly a lifelong love, or the kind of passion that would have fizzled if they had been able to stay together?
3.How do you think Elliott and Pearl’s marriage played out? Do you think she knew she wasn’t the love of his life? Do you think Elliott told Pearl about Alice?
4.Ben’s life seems to parallel Alice’s in some significant ways. Like Alice, he lands in Seattle even though it is not his home town. In addition, they both have a health issue about which they feel self-conscious. Considering the parallels between Alice and Ben, do you think that Ali is Ben’s Elliott or his Fred?
5.Grammie states that she does not want to know what was in the letters between her mother and Elliott. Would you feel the same way upon fi
nding love letters between one of your parents and a previous lover?
6.How was Fred able to be so sanguine about Alice’s love for Elliott? Do you think he would have been upset if he’d seen Alice mouth “Always” to Elliott when they catch a glimpse of each other in New York? What does Fred’s acceptance of Alice’s past with Elliott tell you about his love?
7.Why did Ali think that she and Scott belonged together? What did the letters teach her about relationships that she didn’t know before the start of the novel?
8.What is the importance of female friendship in the book? How do Caroline and Frankie help keep Ali and Alice grounded and how do they encourage them to dream?
9.If you were to name a child after a family member, what name would you pick and why?
10.If you were Alice, would you have made the decision to marry Fred or would you have continued to wait with the knowledge that you might never see Elliott again?
11.The author told the historical portions of the book in present tense and the contemporary chapters in past tense. How did this impact your understanding of the story? Why do you think the author made this decision?
12. Have you researched the life of any of your ancestors? Did you learn anything interesting or surprising? If you were to deeply research the life of one of your ancestors, whose life would you like to discover more about?
Discussion Guide prepared with the assistance of Emily Guy Birken, avid reader, book club enthusiast, and author of The Five Years Before You Retire and End Financial Stress Now.
Acknowledgments