You would do it because that’s who you are.
I could not bear to become the center of another life you had to sacrifice.
So I did the ugliest thing I have ever done.
I made you hate me.
I put the paper down and covered my mouth with my hand.
There was no other woman, the letter continued.
There was no secret family, no grand romance.
There was just fear, cowardice, and a man who thought he could choose pain for both of us and call it mercy.
I told myself you would use
the card within a month.
I told myself the money would help and the anger would free you.
I was wrong about you, and I was wrong about what cruelty costs.
I did not notice I was crying until one tear landed on the paper and smeared the edge of his handwriting.
The manager spoke softly, as if she had seen this kind of devastation before and knew not to crowd it.
She told me Richard had come into the branch almost every month in the first two years.
Sometimes he made deposits.
Sometimes he only asked whether the card had been used.
He never asked for statements.
He never changed the instructions.
Near the end, she said, he came less often because his condition had worsened.
The last time he came in, he left that envelope and said it was to be given to me and no one else.
Then she paused and said the sentence that made the room go distant around me.
He died seven months earlier.
