“Why would he send it to you?”
Arthur stood.
“There’s something I need to show you.”
He left the room.
It was a copy.
My heart was pounding.
When Arthur returned, he was carrying a wooden box.
He placed it on the coffee table.
Inside were letters, dozens of them.
Every envelope had one sender written across the front.
Robert.
My heart was pounding.
***
I picked up the first letter.
The return address was from our old
house.
My hands started shaking again.
“How long were you two writing?”
“On and off for decades.”
I looked at Arthur.
“Robert never told me.”
That hurt.
My hands started shaking.
Arthur saw it.
“He wasn’t hiding an affair, Abigail.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You thought it.”
I almost laughed. He was right.
Arthur explained that after Robert returned to the United States, they wrote occasionally.
Then life became busy.
“You thought it.”
Marriage, children, and work.
Years passed between letters.
