Then we cried.
And for the first time, I realized something important.
Anna wasn’t a doorway back into my past.
She was a person who had lived an entirely different life.
Just like me.
We had both grown old.
We had both loved other people.
We had both experienced joy and loss.
The young people who had once planned their future together were gone.
What remained were two older people sitting across from each other, finally understanding why their lives had taken such different paths.
Before I left, Anna asked:
“Will you ever forgive Carol?”
I looked at the photograph in my hand.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
“I think that’s okay.”
I stood at the door.
Then I turned around.
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for telling me the truth.”
She smiled.
“I think Carol wanted us to.”
I drove home that evening.
The house was exactly as I had left it.
Quiet.
Empty.
Carol’s chair was still in the kitchen.
Her coffee mug was still sitting on the shelf.
For the first time since her death, I walked into our bedroom without feeling like I was entering a grave.
I opened her closet.
I touched one of her dresses.
