Adrian took a breath.
“There was a second identity prepared for him. James disappeared officially. A different man was listed as dead. James was moved through several locations.”
“Where?”
“Cambodia first.”
My breath caught.
“Then Laos.”
He continued.
“Eventually, he was taken out through Thailand.”
I stared at him.
“Why didn’t he contact me?”
Adrian’s eyes filled with tears.
“He tried.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“He wrote letters.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-three.”
My hand went to my mouth.
“Where are they?”
Adrian looked away.
“They never reached you.”
“Who stopped them?”
He hesitated.
Then he said:
“Colonel Hale.”
I stood.
“Why?”
“Because Hale believed you were being watched.”
“By whom?”
Adrian looked directly into my eyes.
“The same people who wanted James dead.”
I felt something inside me break.
For fifty-six years, I had believed James had forgotten me because he had died.
But he hadn’t forgotten me.
He had written to me.
Twenty-three times.
“Where are those letters?”
Adrian reached into his coat again.
This time he removed a thick bundle tied with string.
My hands began shaking before I even touched them.
“They were given to me years ago,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because James asked me to keep them.”
I untied the string.
The first envelope was yellow with age.
Mary.
My name.
James’s handwriting.
I opened it.
The letter was dated September 1970.
“My darling Mary,
If you are reading this, then somehow the truth has reached you.
I don’t know if that will happen while I’m alive.
I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.
But I need you to know one thing.
I never left you willingly.”
I pressed the letter against my chest.
The room disappeared.
I was back in 1970.
Back in our tiny wedding yard.
Back beside the crooked cake.
Back inside his arms.
I kept reading.
“Every night I close my eyes and remember you standing beneath your mother’s porch light.
I remember your dress.
I remember your laugh.
I remember you telling me not to forget the roses.
I didn’t forget.
I never forgot anything.”
Tears fell onto the paper.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
“I have to disappear for your safety.
Please don’t wait for me.
But if someday the danger is gone, I will come home.”
I stopped reading.
I looked at Adrian.
“Did he ever come home?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
My heart began pounding.
“Adrian.”
He looked down.
“He came close.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
I couldn’t speak.
“What?”
“He was alive three years ago.”
I gripped the table.
“Where is he?”
Adrian’s eyes filled with tears.
“He died.”
The room became silent.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
I closed my eyes.
The grief that came wasn’t the grief of fifty-six years ago.
It was different.
Sharper.
Because this time I knew he had been alive.
He had lived.
He had remembered me.
He had wanted to come home.
And I had never known.
“How?”
“Cancer.”
I cried.
Not quietly.
Not gracefully.
I cried like the young woman who had lost her husband decades earlier.
Adrian waited.
When I finally looked up, he reached into his pocket.
“There is one more thing.”
“What?”
“A letter.”
He handed it to me.
“This one wasn’t supposed to reach you until after his death.”
My hands trembled.
The envelope was thicker than the others.
On the front, in James’s handwriting, were six words.
“For my wife, when I’m finally safe.”
I opened it.
The first line destroyed me.
“My dearest Mary,
If Adrian is giving you this letter, then I didn’t make it home in time.”
I couldn’t continue.
I wiped my eyes.
Then forced myself to read.
“I know you will wonder why I stayed away so long.
I know you will wonder whether I loved you.
Please never question that.
You were my wife for two days.
But you were my wife for my entire life.”
I cried harder.
He continued.
