“After Ruth died, I found a box hidden behind the lining of an old suitcase.”
“Your wife died six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And you found this then?”
“Not immediately. I donated most of her clothes, but I kept the suitcase. I found the letters last year.”
“What letters?”
“More than 40.”
The courtyard seemed to tilt.
Clara quietly went inside, leaving David and me alone.
I looked at the envelope.
“Michael wrote to your wife?”
“For years.”
“How many years?”
David’s eyes filled.
“Almost 11.”
I pushed the envelope away.
“No.”
“I wish I were wrong.”
“No. Michael was not unfaithful to me for 11 years.”
David did not argue.
That made me hate him for a moment.
I wanted him to defend my husband.
I wanted him to say the letters had been misunderstood.
That Ruth and Michael had been old friends.
That whatever this was, it had not touched my marriage.
Instead, he said, “They met at a conference in Valletta.”
The trip came back to me.
Michael had worked for a shipping company at the time.
He traveled often.
I stayed home with our daughter, Rebecca, who had just started school.
He called every night.
At least, I thought he did.
David continued.
“Ruth was here visiting her sister. She and Michael met in this restaurant.”
I looked around the courtyard.
The old stone walls.
The flowering vines.
The harbor visible through an archway.
This was where my husband had met another man’s wife.
“They saw each other again?” I asked.
“Several times.”
“Here?”
“Here. London. Paris. Once in Boston.”
Boston.
I remembered Boston.
Michael came home with a red scarf and said he bought it during a layover because he missed me.
I wore it for 20 years.
I pressed both hands against my mouth.
David looked away.
“Did they love each other?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me again.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“Yes.”
The answer broke something.
Not loudly.
There was no dramatic crack.
Just a quiet collapse inside a life I thought had already ended.
Michael had died beside me.
Cancer took him slowly.
I fed him soup when he could no longer hold a spoon.
