Cordelia is a retired diplomat now in her eighties. She has never married because her career came first. Back in her day, there was a rule that female employees in government service had to resign when they married. That doesn't mean that she has no romantic past or even present.
The glass ceiling was lower in those days. For much of her career, Cordelia was a secretariat except during the second world war when she was a handler of spies and after the war when she became a cultural attaché in emerging nations.
She broke through the ceiling only at the end of her diplomatic career when, in 1960, she became ambassador to Goa until Goa became part of India.
Since her retirement, Cordelia has been a science fiction writer. She's never won any awards but she still gets invited to minor SF conventions and (since she wrote one episode of Star Trek) Trekkie conventions.
Cordelia has known Kelli longer than anyone in this world. She was there when Kelli came through into this world and since then, the two have acted as if they were grandmother and granddaughter.
