Epilogue
"Of the record, did you love her?" Cassidy asks. They are sitting at the UN offices in Switzerland.
Andrea had been invited as a guest for her humanitarian work in Mexico for the past 25 years.
"I did," she explains, "I loved her more than anything in the world. She was the only person I ever loved, Cass."
"You never came back, you left her on the airport stairs and never came back" Cassidy's voice breaks.
"Cass, this isn't the best place for this talk. Let's finish the interview. We'll get dinner, Olivia is arriving later today you can see her too."
Cass nods and they mumble through a few more questions about what helping the indigenous people has meant to her, about giving up her promising law career meant and about her grandmother and how proud she would be.
Andrea leaves knowing she will have to answer Cass for so much. She left the love of her life standing at the airport in Mexico City 25 years ago. She could not leave, she could not go back to lead the same life she was leading after the world had been uprooted and gardened again. Yet, she could not make Miranda stay in Mexico, Miranda would have done it. She would have done it out of guilt and love and loyalty. She would have done it but it would have made her miserable, so Andrea left. Part to free Miranda and part to free herself. If she was honest she would say she visited her grandmothers tomb that day, she and Olivia sat there on the wooden bench of the quiet church and stared. They stared at the family name, both her grandparents and her aunt were buried there, ashes to ashes. Andrea could not have gone to the states and faced everyone. She wasn't as strong as Miranda. She never had been. She didn't know how to fight back, she didn't know how to shed the past.
She had sent Miranda adoption papers for Olivia, and a contract dictating parental custody. Miranda had signed them all, no questions, no letters. They always talked through their lawyer as if afraid that hearing each other would entice the breakdown they were both holding. Every February Miranda would send Andrea a Cartier jewel. The first time it said
'to the love of my life,
M'
that was the only time. After that they always arrived unsigned and without a note. They didn't need one. Andrea always sent Miranda white roses every September and a Gucci scarf.
"She left you everything, you know?" Cass says as they sit down for dinner.
Andrea nods.
"You were still her wife."
"I know"
"You haven't claimed it." Cass reproaches.
"I don't want to," she says, "I am going to give it all to Olivia and you two"
Cass nods, "she left you the house in the Hamptons. She wants you go there."
"I never came back, but she knew I loved her. I gave her Olivia and.."
"A scarf every birthday, I know. She would wear it all the time. 22 of them. She had 22"
"Cass, I had to stay" Andrea's voice cracks.
She had to help her country, living out in the Nevada for two years changed her life. Her perspective of poverty, of indigenous people, or why she was put on this Earth. She had the means, her grandmothers' state, she had Olivia's inheritance.
"Mom was never the same, she retired two years later"
"I know"
"She bought a house in California"
"I know"
"Why Andrea?"
"We weren't meant to be Cass, your mom and I"
"She always said that. She said you two were meant for something great, even if it wasn't each other. I guess you two did prove that point. She started a fashion brand after that and you well you were a fucking hero."
"Don't say it like that," Andrea whispers. That sentence was hers. It was the sentence she used at the restaurant back in Chicago.
"you never kept in touch with us. It … I was hurt," Cass confesses.
"I should have"
"We only knew what Olivia told us every winter and every summer"
"She loved Miranda so much, she was her second mother"
Cass nods, Olivia arrives.
"I'm sorry for being late, the taxi was lost"
They catch up, they all catch up for 25 years lost and so much unsaid in between. Cass kept working for the Human Rights coalition for years, until a 3 years ago when she moved to the UN headquarters after her mother died. Andrea attended the funeral with Olivia but did not stay. She walked away as soon as the casket was lowered. It didn't matter anymore. What if people judged, the only person that mattered wasn't' there anymore. She had not been in the mood to socialize with designers and press.
Caroline ended up leaving medical school after the second year and finishing as a fashion major. She followed her mother's steps and now worked with Runway Britain. Olivia turned out to be the doctor, in true Aster tradition she studied at USC, she had sold her mother's house in Newport and often visited Miranda in her years there. Andrea, well she had become a fucking hero and as most heroes always are, she herself was broken.
~ months later
Andrea had enacted the will. She had accepted Miranda's state. She felt imprisoned by it all. She quickly turned everything over to the twins. Even though Miranda had provided for both of them, she gave them everything else. The townhome, the house in England and all the money. She gave the house in California to Olivia and she kept the one in the Hamptons. They had been so happy here, for a few days the world had quieted around them. Miranda had laughed more than she ever heard her laugh. This was their last time together in New York. The house was quiet now, full of shadows and memories. The pool was dry, and leaves fell over it. The tears fell and she didn't bother to wipe them away. This had been paradise. Andrea climbed the stairs slowly and walked into the master bedroom. When she enacted the inheritance she had been given something else. Something that she had not brought herself to open until this moment.
'My darling Andrea,
If I know you well, you're reading this in the beach house. The one in the Hamptons, the one where we were so happy. Perhaps you're sitting in the patio or my bedroom. Whatever you do, and where ever life takes you in the years to follow I want you to keep this house. Keep this house always, it meant the world to me. To be here with you, to be so free and have your whole heart,"
Andrea is crying now, tears roll down quietly. She can hear Miranda's quiet voice. She can see her, head tilted back smiling.
"I won't reproach you the years we have spent apart. It wasn't our fault, they simply weren't meant to be. We weren't meant to be. All our moments together have stuck with me, the good and the bad but there was one moment that seemed to dictate out fate. That moment at the Abergaire in Chicago when you said, 'we were meant for something grand, even if it wasn't each other'. We were meant for so many grand things, we were meant to save each other when the world was falling apart around us. I owe you my life, you saved me with that one phone call, you saved me in every way someone can be saved.
I've watched your career from afar, you make me proud. I insist that you are a better person than I ever was. I see how you've raised Olivia, she tells me all the lessons you give her, Natalie would be proud. She would be proud you've shared her with me. I see her, and I see you. I see your idealism, your hope, your kindness. She's going to make a great doctor, I tell her that all the time. She tells me, that you love me. That you keep our wedding picture over the piano, with the tulips. She tells me that it conflicts you, our love and faith. She tells me you never took your ring of, I still have mine. I'll have it till the day I die. Andrea, marrying you was the one sane decision I took in my life, and I am glad you agreed, even if it was short lived. Being your wife was the greatest accomplishment of my life, perhaps second only to being a mother.
Don't cry. If I know you well, you're crying"
Andrea laughs and dries the tears from her eyes. Steve had almost been right. With time, she had quieted the heartbreak, her humanitarian work kept her busy and raising Olivia had been a full time job. Pain had dulled. But it had never healed, she had never been reckless again. Here reading Miranda's letter, she knew her heart had never healed and it hurt with the same intensity it had all those years ago.
"I hope you fix this house, put water in the pool and make the plants beautiful again. Like you did with the hacienda and the city house. I hope you come here often, with Olivia. I hope you two have cocktail parties in the pool, maybe have Cass and Caro over. I hope you're happy Andrea. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy."
Andrea feels something else in the envelope, the ring. The emerald ring. Unordinary.
"I could write so much more. I could write things I've been wanting to tell you for 20 years. Reproach you for leaving me in a hoard of paparazzi twice! And without answers to tell them! I want to regale you with tales of Runway, you'd laugh at some of them. And Nigel's face when I told him I was retiring two years after returning. I want to tell you about starting a fashion brand on the west coast, a beach inspired brand, and the aid of all three Priestly children. I officially adopted Olivia so, she's a Priestly too and so are you. I hope you use your last name someday. I want to tell you about writing the last Editors Page, and how I signed it with both our last names. You would enjoy the fight with Irv, over that. I want to tell you how much I've missed you every single day for the last 20 years. And I want to thank you for the flowers and the scarfs, they meant the world to me. I looked forward to turning one year older because of you.
Andrea the years are drawing to an end for me. The doctors have diagnosed stage four something. I have decided to keep it a secret. I would not want you to come see me out of duty. I want you to remember me the glamorous, powerful editor that was madly in love with you. I want you to remember every time I kissed you and made love to you, I want you to remember I loved you more than anyone else in the world.
That's all, my dearest Andy.
I wish you the best future. I won't see you become even grander, and help more people. I won't see you make those cocktail parties, or wear the ring anymore. I won't ever see your beautiful chocolate eyes, or walk Olivia down the aisle if she finds true love. I won't get to tell you in person that I love you.
I love you. I always have. I always will.
All my love,
Miranda Priestly-Sachs
The letter ends with an elaborate signature and Andrea sits there crying despite the orders the letter gives not to do so. People looking from outside could say that Andrea was unfair in leaving Miranda, that she wasn't brave enough. That she was full of antiquated ideas not feasible in a modern world. Others would say she had not forgiven Miranda fully and that it was Miranda's fault for betraying Andrea. Neither would be right. Andrea had learned one thing in all the war years, to forgive. She had forgiven Miranda because she loved her, and she had left her because war had also taught her faith was real, and god in the most obscure of days will shine a light.
~ two years later
"Mom! I have the cocktails ready! Is Caroline and the boys here yet?" Olivia yells from the pool.
She's holding a martini in one hand and bottle of something in the other.
"She texted me, they'll be here in a few minutes," Cass said.
Cass had never married but Caroline had married twice and had three rambunctious boys with her second husband of 8 years.
Olivia was dating Ronald, a doctor at the hospital in California she worked with.
She had recently moved to California.
"I'm here, I'm here and oh my God Andy, congratulations!" she exclaims
"We're not talking about it, it's only a nomination," she blushes.
"Here, Get a drink," Olivia orders and they all do.
"what are we toasting to?" Cass asks.
Olivia is about to say her mother has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize but Andrea interrupts.
"We're celebrating great women today and family. We're celebrating my grandmother, and Natalie,' she turns to Olivia who nods, "and Cass for getting a promotion at the UN and Caroline for moving to French Runway and being here in this house, that I finally had the time to make beautiful again! We're celebrating that I, Andrea Marie Priestly-Sachs got nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize," she stops when everyone claps.
"You changed it?" Cass and Olivia ask in unison.
"Officially" she smiles referring to her combined last name.
"Mom would have been so happy"
Andrea nods, Life often changes our paths. It challenges us, to decide what is more important. It makes us choose between family and love, hope and loyalty, patriotism and rationale. Life is not a kind mistress, to not hurt those we love we often sacrifice love itself. To not betray memories and promises we break our own heart. To not risk hell, we abandon heaven. Andrea wasn't a stranger to the irony of life. As a teen-ager she had told her mother she wanted an romance worthy of the greatest love story, an on screen romance that would fill the imagination of many and would end in tragic music and tears for those watching. She wanted a romance written off as fiction, Arthur and Isoldes, Romeo and Juliet, Carol and Therese, Jack and Rose, Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. She had definitely gotten it, life had given her more than she had bargained for. Life is mysterious like that.
"And most of all," Andrea continues raising her glass, "we're celebrating Miranda"
Cheers!