Hemi reaches into his jacket pocket. I assume he’s reaching for his billfold, to pay, to leave. Instead, he produces a square of blue paper, unfolding it with an almost delicate care, and places it in front of me on the bar. “Perhaps this will refresh your memory.”
I stare at the page, sharply creased along its folds, as if it has been opened and refolded many times. It’s been crumpled at some point, too, but the wrinkles have smoothed over time, and I realize the letter has been carefully preserved. The ink has faded, but the words are mine.
How does one write such a letter? Knowing the pain it will cause. To end things so bluntly, after so much planning, seems unthinkable even to me. You’ll think me hard and selfish. Perhaps it’s true. Yes, I’m certain it is. But we would never have been happy, you and I. Not in the end. I care for you—will always care for you in my way—but it never would have worked. We’re not matched in the things that really matter, which is why I must now end what should never have begun. If you look at it squarely, as I have, you’ll see that it’s for the best. In fact, one day I believe you’ll be glad I came to my senses. I’m to blame, of course, for letting it go on as long as it did, for letting it happen at all, I suppose. And this is hardly a brave way to end things, a few words scribbled on a scrap of paper. But when your pride has recovered from the sting of this note, you’ll realize I’ve spared us both. The truth is I’ve promised myself to another and despite my misgivings, I’m not strong enough to break that promise. I’m going away, will already be gone when you read this, too much of a coward to face the mess I’ve created. Please don’t try to contact me. My mind is made up. I beg you to forgive my selfish and fickle heart.
—Marian
I look up at him, baffled. He’s waiting for a response, quite pleased with himself, too, as if he’s caught me in a lie of some kind. But the letter’s all wrong. Familiar, yes, but all wrong. How on earth . . . “Hemi, why do you have this?”
A chilly smile settles at the corners of his mouth. “What can I say? I’m sentimental. Please don’t tell me you’re going to pretend you didn’t write it.”
“No. I wrote it—to Teddy. How did you get it?”
The smile drops away, and for a moment, his face goes blank. “You sent it. With Dickey.”
I blink down at the page, unable to make sense of it. “This is the letter he brought you that night?”
“You know damn well it was.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head emphatically. “I didn’t send you this. I wrote two letters. One for Teddy, to explain why I couldn’t marry him, and one for you. The one I wrote to you was short. Eight words, to be precise. This is Teddy’s letter.”
He picks up his drink and lifts it to his lips, then puts it down again without sipping. He’s silent for a time, eyes locked straight ahead as he registers what I’ve just told him. “The one meant for me,” he says at last, his face unreadable. “What did it say?”
I look away, recalling the discarded drafts that had ended up in the wastebasket that day, failed attempts to tell him goodbye—all torn to shreds. Because in the end, I realized I couldn’t say it. “It said . . . I’m coming. Wait for me.”
“That’s five words. What else did it say?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“No, but I’d like to know, just the same.”
I make the mistake of looking at him then. Our eyes hold a moment, a chilly clash of wills. “I don’t remember,” I say finally and reach for my wine. “But I do know it didn’t say this. I can’t understand it. I put a stamp on Teddy’s letter the minute I sealed it and told Dickey to drop it in the mailbox. He couldn’t have mixed it up with yours.”
“There was no stamp on the envelope he left.”
A blade of cold slices through me as the truth dawns, terrible yet inescapable. “They were switched. Somehow Teddy’s letter wound up in the envelope meant for you.”
He looks skeptical now. “You’re saying Dickey opened your letters and read them, then mixed them up when he put them back?”
“I don’t know. But something happened. Look.” I point to my name—my real name—at the bottom of the page. “It’s signed Marian.” I pause, swallowing past the sudden threat of tears. “I was only ever Belle to you. If this was meant for you, why would I sign with my actual name?”
He glances at the signature but shows no sign of being swayed. “What you’re suggesting makes no sense. I can’t see Dickey risking his hide for a peek at his aunt’s letters. The poor kid was scared to death. In fact, when I asked him to relay a message to you, he said he wasn’t allowed to talk to me and bolted.”
“Was the envelope torn when you got it? Do you remember?”
He eyes me with astonishment. “Do I remember?”
I drop my gaze. “I just meant—”
“No. The envelope wasn’t torn.”
“I don’t understand how . . .” I stop midsentence as a thought occurs. “What were you going to ask Dickey to tell me?”
There’s a long beat of silence. Finally, I think he’s about to answer. Instead, he looks down at his glass, giving the ice at the bottom a shake. “I can’t remember.”
Fair enough.
I pick up the letter again, scanning the lines I penned so long ago, the vague phrasing and carefully chosen words—words meant for another man—and I imagine Hemi reading them for the first time. My throat aches as I realize how easy it would have been to believe they’d been meant for him and the gut-wrenching pain they must have caused. I try to wrap my head around it. How could it have happened? And then I remember Corinne coming into my room while I was writing the letters and how she was still there, tidying up, when I returned from the bathroom.
“My sister,” I say, knowing it’s true. “She did this.”
I feel his eyes on me as he waits for more, but I’m incapable of speech, the emotions too much to process all at once. I should be stunned, horrified to learn my own flesh and blood would be capable of such deceit, but I’m not. That kind of sabotage is right up Corinne’s alley. But I am angry with myself for not having realized it sooner and for not having been more careful with the letters.
The repercussions of her treachery hit like a fist. What’s been stolen from me. From us. The life we should have shared. The son we would have raised together. The ache of it nearly doubles me over.
Tears blur my vision and I reach for a cocktail napkin to blot my eyes, aware that Hemi is waiting for me to go on. “Corinne came to my room while I was writing the letters. She must have gone snooping while I was in the bathroom and realized I was breaking it off with Teddy. I don’t know how she did it, but she must have switched them.”
His expression is guarded as he studies me, distant, impervious. I submit to his scrutiny, wondering what he sees and why it should matter after so many years. But it does. Suddenly it matters much too much. Has he grasped the fallout from my sister’s actions, or am I the only one lamenting what might have been? “Say something,” I say at last.
He looks down at his hands, fisted on the edge of the bar. “What is it you want me to say?”