I washed his hair.
Changed his sheets.
Slept in a chair beside his hospice bed.
On his final morning, he squeezed my hand and said, “You were the best part of my life.”
I believed him.
Maybe I still did.
That was the cruelest part.
“Why did it end?” I asked.
“Ruth said they chose their families.”
“How noble.”
David flinched.
“They ended the affair 21 years ago.”
“But kept writing?”
“For a while. The last letters were apologies.”
“To each other?”
“Mostly.”
I looked at the envelope again.
“And that?”
“Michael wrote it to you.”
“Why didn’t he give it to me?”
“I think he gave it to Ruth because he was afraid.”
“Afraid of me?”
“Afraid of losing you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“He risked losing me for 11 years.”
“I know.”
“No, David. You know what your wife did. You do not know what my husband did to me.”
He accepted that without defending himself.
It made my anger harder to hold in one shape.
“Did Ruth know Michael died?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She kept track of your family online.”
A chill moved through me.
“Is that how you recognized me?”
David nodded.
“There were photographs in the box. One of you and Michael at your daughter’s wedding. Another from an anniversary dinner.”
I stood.
“You saw me wandering around Valletta with my map upside down, and you knew exactly who I was.”
“Yes.”
“You laughed and asked if it was my first time in Malta.”
“Yes.”
“You pretended we were strangers.”
“I was going to introduce myself and give you the envelope.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the harbor.
“Because you smiled at me.”
I waited.
“That sounds foolish now,” he said. “But you looked lost, then started laughing at yourself. I had spent months imagining you as a name on an envelope. Suddenly you were a person.”
“So you took me for coffee.”
“I told myself it was only coffee.”
“Then breakfast.”
“Yes.”
“Gozo.”
“Yes.”
“My final dinner.”
His voice dropped.
“Yes.”
Every memory changed as he admitted it.
The coffee that had felt spontaneous.
The ferry ride where he held my hand when the deck shifted.
