The note ended there. She hadn’t signed it. She hadn’t needed to.
I felt my face getting hot. The hurt came first, then the anger. It was bad enough that she’d lied to me. She’d also taken the one thing I had asked her to do, tell me the truth, and used my trust to keep us apart.
Dewitt folded the note along its old crease. “She never told me.”
“I know.”
“I loved her,” he said. His eyes stayed on the paper. “I was married to her for fifty years.”
“I know,” I said. “I loved her too.”
There was a long pause. I looked at the letters between us. I wanted to say that one truth didn’t erase the years he’d shared with my sister. I wanted to say that it didn’t make what she’d done any smaller. I couldn’t find a way to make both things sound neat, so I didn’t try.
Dewitt rubbed his thumb over the edge of the note. “Maybe she thought keeping them was better than throwing them away.”
“Keeping them wasn’t the same as making it right.”
He nodded. “No.”
That was all he said. It was enough.
My daughter called while we were still at the table. I’d forgotten to tell her I’d arrived. I watched the phone ring once, then picked it up.
“Mama, where are you?”
“At Dewitt’s ranch. I found the letters.”
She went quiet. “What letters?”
“Mine. His. And a note from Madge.”
I heard her take a breath. “I’m coming.”
When she arrived, she walked into the hall with her purse still over her shoulder. She glanced at Dewitt, then at me, then at the stack. I could see she wanted to ask whether I’d been foolish to come. She didn’t.
