1 AUGUST, 2021

Sunday, August 1sT, 2021

Dear Harry,

My birthday. Peggy’s birthday. There can’t be many of us, mother and son, who share a birthday. You used to joke that I was her 30th birthday present. Were she alive today she would be one hundred and fifteen years old. Which makes me eighty-five. To borrow the title of one of Ellie's father's novels, I didn't know I would live so long.

I miss Peggy, miss the birthdays that we spent together. She was the best cake-maker in the universe, whether for birthday, Christmas or Easter. Weddings. Dark, rich fruitcakes, quite delicious. And they kept for, what? Weeks? Months? And cherry sponge cakes, light and equally delicious. But they didn't last so long. No one could resist them.

Anyway, here we are. The Feast of St. Peter’s Chains. I already thanked you in an earlier letter for my name, and what it means to me. But it never hurts to be thanked again.

People call me Peter, never Pete. The only one who ever called me Pete was… Peggy!

Sending good thoughts, then. We are back down at our Laguna Beach cottage, not Glenview, but paid for mostly by the proceeds from the sale of Glenview. We have no plans, other than to have a few friends over for dinner. Ellie has not yet told me who they are, not what time they are coming. It’s a surprise.

With love, Peter