She nodded.
“You wrote it almost forty years ago.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
I looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Anna sat across from me.
“Because you never sent it.”
I felt my heart pounding.
“I don’t understand.”
“You wrote me a letter after our last argument. You told me you were willing to give up the job and stay.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I never wrote that.”
“You did.”
Anna’s voice trembled.
“You wrote that you loved me. You wrote that you didn’t want a career if it meant losing me.”
I shook my head.
“Then why didn’t I send it?”
Anna looked down.
“Because Carol intercepted it.”
The room became completely silent.
I could hear the ticking of a clock somewhere behind me.
I looked at Anna.
“Why would Carol do that?”
Anna’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because she was already involved.”
“In what?”
Anna didn’t answer.
Instead, she pushed the envelope toward me.
“Read it.”
My hands trembled as I opened it.
The paper was old.
The handwriting was mine.
And the first sentence made my heart stop.
“Anna, if you’re reading this, it means I finally found the courage to choose you.”
