“I am nothing like your shit of an ex-husband, Dani. Don’t insult me by comparing me to him. There is not one lie in those words, so I’m not sure how you got to deceit.”
“You called yourself Lincoln. I met a man…”
“You met my father, he told you he had a son called Lincoln, and he wasn’t lying to you. My name is Lincoln Miller Copeland. I have gone by the name, Miller, since primary school. I got fed up, even at that age, of being called by my father’s name, of both of us answering when someone called us, of not having my own identity.”
“He lives in an old people’s home. You told me he lives at the bottom of your garden.”
“I told you he lived, past tense, at the bottom of my garden. He moved into a home just a few months ago, because he prefers that and it’s better for him. I can’t care for him the way he needs, or so he thinks.”
“You said, in your letter, that your wife died of breast cancer.”
“So she did, two…well, three years ago now.”
“But you divorced…”
“I’ve been married twice, for my shame, and both fucked off and left me.”
“Fucked off?”
“Abandoned, whatever words you want to use. It’s all the same.”
I could see the anger and sadness mixing in his eyes. His features hardened, and the tension was palpable. His jaw worked from side to side, and his fist had clenched around his glass to the point his knuckled were white.
“I feel exposed. I’ve said things in my letters that I haven’t told anyone, yet all the time you pretended to be someone else.”
“How have I pretended to be anything other than who I am?”
“You didn’t tell me you’d written those letters, you fucking kissed me, you…”
“None of that connects, Dani. And you kissed me back just as fucking passionately, didn’t you? You wanted me as much as I wanted you. Deny that.”
I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t. Miller shuffled up the sofa, I pulled my knees up to block him.
“I wrote those letters, not expecting to ever meet you. I knew who you were, like I told you earlier today, I’ve known you for years. I’ve thought about you a lot over those years. It was a childhood crush, I knew that, but in mind, with every shitty day I lived through, I wondered what my life would have been like had you been in it. You, without knowing it, got me through nights in prison when all-out war was going on, both in my mind and outside the cells. You, Dani, stopped me from killing myself when life was so fucked up and I was so drunk nothing made sense. So I found your letter and I thought I could give back some of the help you, unknowingly, gave me.”
“But…”
“But then your dad asked me to quote for your barn. What was I to do? I could have refused, I could have said I was too busy, but I didn’t want to.”
I watched his shoulders rise and fall faster than they should have. I saw a pulse beat frantically in the side of his neck. His eyes, however, had softened. Gone was the darkness, instead I saw a pleading. I shook my head.
“I think it was a shitty thing to do,” I said, quieter as the fight had left my body.
“Shitty? Shitty would have been to ignore your cry, no, scream, for help. Shitty would have been to have stopped replying to you earlier, when you still needed to hear those words and read those letters. Shitty would have been to have abandoned you, when you needed me.”
“I don’t need you,” I said, my voice rising.
“You don’t need me, Miller, the man sitting here now, watching your heart rate increase, watching your pupils dilate, watching your body start to shiver even though it’s fucking warm in here? Or Lincoln? Because we are one and the same, and every word written in those letters was healing, cathartic, freeing, for both of us. And from the heart, Dani. From. The. Heart.”
Without me realising he was so close, his body had pushed my knees to my chest. I was squashed into the corner of the sofa with nowhere to go.
“From the heart,” he whispered.
I stared at him, all the while trying to slow my heart down, trying to stop the shiver that raced over my body. Miller placed his hand on the outside of my thigh; he slid it to my waist.
“You needed me, and you know what? I needed you. And that has nothing to do with some silly childhood crush. We were both grieving, hurting; don’t tell me you didn’t find those letters a comfort. Don’t tell me you didn’t want to receive them, that you didn’t look forward to receiving them.”
“It’s creepy,” I said, not sure where the word had come from. “You said you’d followed me around when I was a kid, and this kind of feels like you’ve taken advantage of me.”
“Taken advantage of you?”
“Yes.” I straightened my back in defiance.
“Anything I’ve ever done has been because I care. But if you feel differently, then I guess you ought to leave.”
He sat back so abruptly it was as if I’d slapped his face. And I guessed I had. He stood and paced for a moment, before picking up his glass, and draining his drink. I was about to stand when he threw the glass into the fire. It shattered, it hissed, sparks flew out covering the stone hearth. I cried out in shock.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, not looking at me.
I stood, not sure what to do.
“Let me drive you home, it’s dark out. I can bring the car back in the morning.”
“I’m capable of driving in the dark, it’s how I got here,” I said.
He kept his back to me. “How did you find out?” he asked, his voice so quiet it was difficult to hear at first. “Was it Daniel?”
“Daniel? No. Does Daniel know?”
He nodded his head. “My brother the saint that ain’t found one of your letters. Guess that’s why he decided to step in and protect you from me.” His laugh was bitter.
“Did your first wife have an affair with Daniel?”
“No. She was having an affair, just not with Daniel. She then had the decency to leave me and ran to Daniel, her confidant. She told him I’d abused her, verbally, emotionally, whatever. He believed her because he thought I was a fuck-up anyway. I guess they got close, super close. Close enough for me to walk in on them one time. See, Dani, I know about betrayal and deceit, which is why I thought I was doing a good thing by replying to your letters.”
He walked from the room, leaving me standing there. I walked to the living room door.
“What about your wife? You told me she was called Anna. Your dad was visiting Anna’s grave. How coincidental is that?”
“Very coincidental. My wife was called Annabelle. My dad picked a grave that didn’t look like anyone had visited it for years. I thought it was a strange thing to do, but it gave him some comfort. My mother is in Devon. I told you we moved away, yes? My mother died there. My dad never envisioned coming back here; it was too painful. But he, we, did, and he couldn’t bring her with him. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered.”
By the direction of his voice, I took it that Miller was in the kitchen. I could hear the clink of glass and wondered if he was pouring himself another drink.
“I don’t know what to say or think,” I said.
“Say nothing, think nothing. I’m not going to apologise, Dani. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong but try to do good. If you can’t see that, you need to leave.”
I couldn’t, at that moment, see that. My thoughts were shrouded with confusion. I was attracted to Miller; I was enthralled with Lincoln. I couldn’t reconcile them. I walked to the front door and gently closed it behind me. I got in the car, and with tears blurring my vision; I drove home.
Chapter Twenty