(To my dearest)
(Dear Mister)
Edmund,
I don’t know why I am writing this. Especially now, of all times. Maybe I just needed something to tell my thoughts to, to share memories with, you know, like I used to do with you.
Remember back when we were children? It felt like it was eternally summer. We used to go outside and play every afternoon. I think the place we went to the most was definitely that little red sandbox, in the park. We used to pretend it was our own little kingdom. You were the king, I was the queen, and it our kingdom was wonderful indeed. But then something changed, I guess, as cliché as it may sound. You grew up, and I grew up. We drifted apart. And yet I never really forgot about you. Never really thought about you, per se, but I did not forget. How could I? You were my first friend.
When we spoke again it was high school, I believe. I still remember how I bumped into you then, I even remember how you dressed. You were wearing a glossy, black, leather jacket, with a pair of jeans and shiny black boots. You even had a bandanna around your head. I was in a traditional bunny costume. It was Halloween, of course. We were both on the way to the party that that girl, who for the life of me I can’t seem to recall the name of, was hosting. We talked, had a few drinks. Eventually one thing led to another and we started seeing each other more until we just started dating. I mean, everyone did think so, at least, and you weren’t against it and I wasn’t against it so I guess that was how we ended up together.
Those were the happiest days of my life. No, I don’t think I have ever been happier than when I was with you back then. But everything came crashing down that winter night. Oh, I’m sure you remember. It was dark, of course, as all nights should be, and the snow fell ever so gently. I decided to surprise you, I even brought a bottle of whisky and a small stack of blankets. Lo and behold, when I got to your backyard, I found you there, all warm and cosy with that girl whose name I really cannot remember. I dropped the whisky and the blankets and ran back home, sadly the bottle didn’t break because it landed in the snow.
From that day on I dropped all contact with you. When you came over, I told my parents to give you one excuse or the other. In school I avoided you like the plague. No, no one could convince me to give you a chance. It was clear as day, that you cared for that nameless girl. I have read enough romance novels wherein the girl sees her boy with another girl and dreadfully misunderstands but I knew, I felt it in my bones, that you did not care for me the way that you did for her. How did I know, you ask? Well, I could see it. Just because I avoided your presence doesn’t mean that I wasn’t there when you were speaking to her. Smiling at her. Sending her those little notes you used to send me. Being classmates seemed to have made me witnessing all that unavoidable, I guess.
You moved on fairly quickly. Not anything like the novels where the boy does everything to try to get the girl back. No, I don’t think you even wanted me back. I counted it all. You came to my house twice. You tried to approach me in the hallway once. You called me on the phone once. See? Let it not be said that I have a penchant for exaggerating. Not that I could blame you, I guess. I was not the most beautiful, or the most intelligent, or even the most charming woman you could meet.
I even pictured it in my mind, how one day you oh-so-valiantly discover the error of you ways, and return to me like a knight in shining armour. And so time passed. We did not keep in touch. I did not even want to see your face ever again.
I went to college. Got a good job as a coroner, it wasn’t the best but it paid the rent and I was satisfied. I found someone else. I moved on. I heard from a mutual acquaintance that you had married that girl you left me for in high school right after graduation. I can’t say that I was ecstatic. It was painful, but in my heart I wished you the best. How could I not, when you were my first sweetheart?
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