Mrs. Delilah Reason
Sophie sat quietly for a long time, thinking about Sam Reason. Mrs. Reason had her children and grandchildren, sisters and brothers and friends to support her and give her purpose. More than that, she had fifty-two years of memories to sustain her, an abundance Sophie found hard to imagine as she weighed Cap’s unopened package in her hand.
Very carefully she clipped the string and folded away the thick brown paper wrapping. Inside she found the familiar, much-loved pen case that had passed back and forth between Cap and herself for ten years, always with a letter enclosed and sometimes with more. She had thought never to see it again and so for a moment she only studied it, tracing the carving of a single tree beside a lake of inlaid pearl.
Finally she opened it to take out a letter of many pages, rolled into a tube and tied with a bit of string. She was terrified and exultant all at once.
Sophie, my love,
Nothing has ever felt more right than the act of breaking the long and painful silence that I created between us. I could make no accusations if you were to tear up this letter without reading another word, but I hope you will not. I have things I must say to you.
I have hurt you and disappointed you and told myself that I acted for your own good. You know that my fears for your health are founded in fact but I must now confess that while I could not admit it to myself at the time, my decision to cut you off was about more than your health. I was angry because I wanted you for my wife and you rejected me. And so, to my shame, I rejected you and convinced myself it was the right thing to do.
Then Aunt Q came to call and when she went away she took my delusions and pretenses with her. I have been cruel and unfeeling, and I can only ask your forgiveness. I hope you will be more generous than I have been, though I don’t deserve it.
I have missed you. Every day, every hour, every minute I have missed you. You must know that I love you still and always, as I have loved you since that June we were sixteen, standing in the shade of the rose arbor, my senses filled up with the scent of the flowers and the low hum of the bees, and then with you and nothing else. Your taste, the texture of your skin at the corner of your mouth, the very sound of your breath catching in your throat. I loved you then as I will love you on the day I die. And I will die, Sophie, and my death will come too soon.
And so I come to the letter from Dr. Z?ngerle which your good aunt brought me. I have read it many times and in the end, I cannot believe that Dr. Z?ngerle’s methods will provide a cure, but I do think that his treatment might give me more time than I would otherwise have. You want me to go to Switzerland and put myself in Dr. Z?ngerle’s care at the Rosenau clinic. I will agree, with some conditions:
However much time I may have, you and I will spend it together. You must come with me to Switzerland and stay with me until the end, whether it comes in a week or six months or even, as unlikely as it seems, a year. I want you to be my wife and when my time is done, my widow. Before we depart for Europe, we must be married in a legal ceremony with your family and witnesses of my choosing in attendance. Our marriage must be announced in the papers both before and after the fact. Whatever the uproar and accusations and scandal, nothing will be done in secret.
We will not share a bed or any kind of physical intimacy beyond the care a physician provides for a patient. You and I will both take every measure to ensure that I do not infect you, or anyone else.
There must be no ambiguity about our status as man and wife and thus the platonic nature of our marriage must not be public knowledge. You will promise to present yourself to the world as my wife in all ways, even after I am gone. This has to do with the law, and only secondarily with my pride.