This is Not a Love Letter

A couple of years later, I married John, and in an attempt to bury the hatchet between us, I decided to invite you to the wedding. It was a silly gesture, I know, but I felt like we had to resolve things between us one way or the other. Imagine my shock when I found out from your lovely widow (at my wedding, no less) that you had passed away. From an unexpected, unfortunate accident? I couldn’t believe the words coming out from her mouth. She had a lovely silk handkerchief in her hand, might I mention, that she used to wipe her pretty little tears from her rosy pink cheeks. I could’ve sniffed that lie from a mile away. You, dying, from an accident? I would no sooner believe that than I would believe that the moon is made of cheese. She must have pushed you off a flight of stairs or something. And yet I kept silent. It was not my place to speak out, who was I to you, after all? No one but a thing of the past, I’m sure.

And so I locked away every memory of you in a little box and went on with my life. John and I had two lovely children, and they’re all grown up now. I had everything, a stable job (you would not expect it but dealing with death is actually a booming business, as morbid as it sounds), a wonderful family life, a good, large pension to look forward to. I had it all, and I still do, except the job. I’m retired now, but anyway, one day I received a call from a young man who just so happened to be your son. Apparently his mother had made him locate me twenty years after they put you six feet under. He said she needed to speak with me, that she was on her deathbed and her last wish was to speak to me before she died. I was half tempted to tell him in no uncertain terms that she should just go ahead and die, no need to wait for li’l old me. But I couldn’t. I still had questions to ask that only she could answer, because beneath all the love I have for John, I still had a bit of a fantasy that long ago, you really did love me.

I went to see her. You should have seen her too, in that hospital bed, with her sunken cheeks and wrinkly face. Deep inside me I couldn’t help but wonder if she looked this way back then, would you still have left me for her? And right when she saw me she burst out into tears. Not those crocodile tears she shed at my wedding. These were genuine tears, brought from sorrow and guilt. She told me everything. How you loved her but called my name. How you married her but found another to warm your bed. She wasn’t sad to see you go. No, she was ecstatic. She whispered conspiratorially, how when you brought home your little wench one night, she strategically placed your son’s skates at the top of the stairs to the basement, which is where you took your paramour to (even when your son was in the house). I was not surprised. If you could cheat on me, why not cheat on your wife as well, hmm? But I did not say a word. Your wife went on, about how you fell down the stairs and so tragically broke your neck, and how your lover would never love another man as she did before. She took special glee in speaking about that. Apparently, your lover broke her spine when she tumbled down the stairs with you, and she would never love another man like she did you, indeed.

After your wife’s heartfelt confessions, I felt a little lighter, a little happier. I felt like I had made the right choice in leaving you all those years ago. My only regret was leaving that nameless girl with you. I felt pity for her, the poor thing, never knowing true love. I disliked her less, after all that. How could I not, we were kindred souls, she and I, only I was slightly more fortunate.

True to her son’s word, your wife passed away mere days after I spoke to her. I attended the funeral. Even saw to all her needs at the morgue myself. I felt like I owed it to her, leaving her with a bastard like you. At least she would have peace in death.

Your son, I am sad to say, does not know the truth. To this day he still believes that you had simply fallen down the stairs. He knows not of your stolen moments with your paramour (who is long dead. She died from the grief and shame of her morals having been exposed as nothing better than the common whore’s. Turns out your bed wasn’t the only one she slept in.) He does not know our story, either, dear Edmund. I don’t think that he needs to know, don’t you?

I know now that the reason why I am writing to you now, thirty wonderful years after your (pitiful) demise, is that I believe I needed a form of closure from you, from your story, no, from our story. Tomorrow I will send my daughter to place this letter at your tombstone. Have I mentioned that your wife absolutely abhorred the thought of being buried beside you, to the point where she had bought another lot, in a different cemetery, half a city away? No? Well now you know. As I have mentioned earlier, I am retired now. I live with John in a cottage a stone’s throw away from my son’s and my daughter’s houses. They both have families of their own now. I feel that John and I will not be here long enough to watch out grandchildren grow old, I’m afraid. But at least I have no more regrets. I have done all that I would ever have wanted to do.

And if you ever wondered, yes, I did love you all those years ago.

Sincerely yours,

Adelaide