“But not in the way you think.”
He picked up one of the envelopes.
“Near the end of his life, Robert found me again.”
“How?”
“An old friend gave him my address.”
“And then?”
“We started writing.”
“How often?”
“At first, every few months.”
Arthur paused.
“Then almost every week.”
I stared at him.
“What did you talk about?”
Arthur looked directly at me.
“You.”
I laughed nervously.
“Me?”
“Mostly.”
“Why?”
“He worried about you.”
My smile disappeared.
“What did he worry about?”
“That after he died, you would forget how to live.”
Those words hit me harder than I expected.
Arthur continued.
“He knew you were always taking care of everyone.”
I looked down.
“He said you had a habit of putting your own happiness at the bottom of every list.”
I couldn’t speak.
Arthur reached into the box.
“There is one letter he specifically told me not to give you unless you came to Australia.”
