“It’s the only answer I have.”
I sat there for a long time. The clock on his wall ticked. A fan spun slowly overhead. Somewhere outside, a dog barked.
“Did you know?” I asked. “When it was happening? Did you know?”
He looked up at me. His eyes were the same color as Raymond’s. That pale blue that had always reminded me of winter sky.
“I knew there was something,” he said. “I didn’t know what. I didn’t ask. Raymond was my brother. I loved him. Whatever it was, it wasn’t my business.”
“It was my business.”
“Yes,” he said. “It was. And I’m sorry you’re finding out about it now. I’m sorry you’re finding out about it at all. But I can’t tell you anything because I don’t know anything. And even if I did, Raymond isn’t here to speak for himself.”
I wanted to be angry at him. I wanted to shout at him for protecting his brother, for looking the other way, for being part of the silence that had surrounded me for forty-three years.
But I wasn’t angry. I was tired.
I drove home that afternoon in silence. No radio. No audiobook. Just the sound of the tires on the highway and the wind through the cracked window and my own breathing.
Harold called me the next day to make sure I got home safe. We did not mention Gloria. We have never mentioned her since.
—
The fourth thing I never told anyone is the hardest one.
I almost burned the letters.
It was a Sunday afternoon, about a year after I found them. I was in the backyard, burning leaves and branches that had come down in a storm. The burn barrel was old and rusted and had belonged to Raymond’s father. I had used it a hundred times.
I went upstairs to the attic. I took my mother’s suitcase out of the corner. I opened it. The shoe box was still there, taped shut exactly as I had left it.
I carried it downstairs. I walked out to the backyard. The burn barrel was still smoldering from the leaves I had put in an hour ago.
I stood there with the box in my hands.
This would be so easy, I thought. Drop it in. Watch it burn. Never think about it again.
But that was a lie, and I knew it. I would think about it. I would think about it every day for the rest of my life. I would wonder what the other nine letters said. I would wonder if burning them meant I was hiding from the truth or protecting myself from it.
I could not tell the difference anymore.
I carried the box back inside. I put it on the kitchen counter. I stared at it for a long time.
Then I took a knife and cut the tape.
—
I read all eleven letters that afternoon. Every single one. In order.
The first one was dated April 12, 1978. Raymond and I had met six months earlier. We were not married yet. The letter was short, barely a page, and it was about a party. A party I had not attended because I had been sick with the flu. Gloria had gone instead, because she and Raymond had mutual friends, and she wrote about how they had ended up talking on the porch for two hours while everyone else was inside.
I didn’t expect to like him as much as I did, she wrote. He’s not the kind of man I usually go for. He’s too quiet. But he listens, Dot. He actually listens. Do you know how rare that is?
I did know. I had known it since the night I met Raymond, when he had asked me about my teaching certification and then remembered every single thing I told him.
The second letter was dated August 3, 1979. Raymond and I had been married for three months. Gloria’s marriage to Curtis was already falling apart.
I know I shouldn’t be writing this, she wrote. I know it’s strange. But I don’t have anyone else to talk to. Curtis looked at me this morning like he didn’t even know who I was. And I thought about Raymond. About how he looks at you. I don’t know if you even notice it anymore. But he looks at you like you’re the only person in the room.
I had noticed. I had always noticed.
The third letter was dated February 14, 1981. Marcus was six months old. Gloria had been divorced for a year.
I think I’m in love with him, she wrote. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want to do anything about it. He’s your husband. He’s the father of your child. But I can’t stop thinking about him. And I hate myself for it.
I put the letter down. I walked away from the kitchen counter. I stood at the window and watched the neighbor’s dog run across their yard.
Then I went back and kept reading.
The fourth letter was dated June 22, 1984. Renee was a toddler. Raymond had just gotten a promotion. Gloria had started dating someone new, a man named Derrick who sold office supplies.
I told him, she wrote. I told Derrick about Raymond. Not everything. But enough. He asked me if I was still in love with him. I said no. I don’t know if that was true. I don’t know anything anymore.
The fifth letter was dated September 9, 1987. Gloria and Derrick had broken up. She was living alone for the first time in her life.
I think about him less now, she wrote. Not never. But less. Is that terrible? That the best I can say is that I think about him less?
The sixth letter was dated March 2, 1992. Marcus was eleven. Renee was eight. Raymond and I had just celebrated our thirteenth anniversary.
I saw him today, she wrote. At the grocery store. He was buying milk and cereal. The ordinary things. He looked tired. He looked good. He asked how I was doing and I lied and said fine. I have been lying to you for thirteen years. I don’t know how to stop.
The seventh letter was dated November 18, 1996. Gloria’s mother had died three weeks earlier. I had been at the funeral. I had held Gloria’s hand.
Thank you for being there, she wrote. Thank you for everything. I don’t deserve you. I have never deserved you. But you keep showing up anyway. Why do you keep showing up?
I remembered holding Gloria’s hand at her mother’s funeral. I remembered thinking that this was what friendship was for. That this was why we had standing Tuesday dinners and keys to each other’s houses. That this was why we had chosen each other.
I had no idea she was writing letters to my husband.
The eighth letter was dated April 7, 2001. The new century. The kids were grown. Marcus was in college. Renee was finishing high school.
I tried to stop, she wrote. I tried to stop writing these letters. I threw away the last three. I burned them. But I can’t stop thinking about him. Not in the way I used to. Not like I want to be with him. I just. I just want to know that he’s okay. I want to know that he’s happy. I want to know that I didn’t ruin everything.
The ninth letter was dated December 23, 2008. Christmas. The last time we had all been together before Marcus moved to Houston.
I watched you two today, she wrote. You and Raymond. The way you moved around each other in the kitchen. The way he handed you a spoon without you asking. The way you smiled at him. That’s what I wanted. Not him. That. The thing you have. The thing I have never been able to find.
The tenth letter was dated May 19, 2015. Raymond had just turned sixty-five. We had talked about retirement. We had talked about traveling.
I’m getting old, she wrote. We’re all getting old. And I’ve spent most of my life loving a man who was never mine to love. I don’t know if that’s romantic or pathetic. I don’t know if there’s a difference.
The eleventh letter was dated July 8, 2021. Raymond had been diagnosed with cancer six weeks earlier. I had not told Gloria yet. I had been waiting until I could say the words without crying.
I heard about Raymond, she wrote. I heard from Harold’s wife. I know you didn’t tell me yet. I know you were trying to find the right time. There is no right time. There is only now. I want you to know that I am here. For you. For him. For whatever you need. I know I don’t deserve to be here. I know I have done things that would make you never want to speak to me again. But I am here anyway. And I will keep being here.
There was no goodbye in that letter. There was no resolution. There was just Gloria, sixty-three years old, still writing letters she would never send, still loving a man she could never have, still showing up for a friend she believed she didn’t deserve.
I sat on my kitchen floor with eleven letters spread out around me. I had not cried at Raymond’s funeral. I had not cried when I found the shoe box. I had not cried during any of the conversations I had with Gloria in the months after.
But I cried on that kitchen floor. I cried for all of us. For Raymond, who had carried whatever secret he carried all the way to his grave. For Gloria, who had spent forty-three years writing letters to a man who was never going to write back. For myself, who had loved them both and been loved by them both and never known the full shape of what that love contained.
I cried until there was nothing left.
Then I put the letters back in the shoe box. I taped it shut. I carried it back to the attic.
And I have not opened it since.
—
That was fourteen months ago.
Gloria and I still talk. Less than before. The Tuesday dinners never came back. But we talk. We check in on each other. We are polite and careful and sometimes, on good days, almost like we used to be.
I have not told her about the letters. I have not told her that I read them all. I have not told her that I know.
But I think she knows that I know.
There is a way that people look at each other when a secret has been exposed but never named. A carefulness. A gentleness that is also a wall. A thousand small decisions about what to say and what not to say.
That is where we live now. In that space between what is known and what is spoken.
It is not where I wanted to be. But it is where I am.
