“Go ahead,” Anna said softly.
“It was always meant for you.”
I picked it up.
The flap had already been opened long ago, carefully, so the paper wasn’t torn.
I slid the letter out.
Two pages, folded in thirds, written in Carol’s neat, careful hand.
I read the first line and had to set it down.
“Take your time,” Anna said.
She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup and looked at the window.
I picked it up again.
*Dear Anna,*
*I am writing this because I cannot live with what I did without at least trying to explain it.
I don’t expect your forgiveness.
I’m not sure I deserve it.*
*When you came to the door that day, I knew exactly who you were.
James had talked about you.
Not often, but enough.
I could see it in his face whenever your name came up — something that wasn’t there when he talked about anything else.*
*I told you he had moved on because I was afraid.
I had loved James for two years by then, and I believed — I still believe — that he loved me too.
But I was terrified that if he saw you again, that would change.
So I lied.
I told you he was engaged to someone else.
I watched you walk back down that path, and I closed the door, and I never told him you had come.*
*Six months later I married him.*
*I have thought about that morning almost every day since.*
I had to stop again.
My hands were shaking so badly the paper was trembling.
“James,” Anna said quietly.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
I don’t know how long I sat there.
Long enough for the coffee to go cold.
When I finally looked up, Anna was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read — not pity, not anger.
Something older than both.
“Did you know?” I asked.
“When you read this, did you know she married me?”
“Not right away.
I found out a few years later.
A mutual friend mentioned it.” She paused.
“I thought about writing to you.
More than once.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She looked at her cup.
“Because what would I have said?
That your wife had lied to keep us apart?
You were already married.
You might have had children by then.
What good would it have done?”
“I had a right to know,” I said.
