felt stronger.
She never did.
PART 2: The Woman Who Left
After the funeral, I kept finding things Carol had set down with every intention of picking them up again.
Her glasses on the recliner. A grocery list under a magnet. A crossword with three answers missing.
I left all of it where it was.
Rebecca called every evening from Columbus. Sometimes she talked about the boys. Sometimes we listened to each other breathe until one of us could manage a sentence.
I didn’t tell her about Anna. I could hardly explain it to myself.
Forty years earlier, I had asked Anna to marry me. We were young, and I was about to leave Millfield for a job. I had very little money, but I had already started imagining an apartment with her books on the shelves.
Her answer arrived in a letter.
She said she couldn’t leave with me.
