The Letter

The moment to say goodbye had come, and passed, with surprising, flat swiftness. It had been inevitable of course, and perhaps that inevitability had stifled the emotion; the preparation a lid, suppressing, for now, the anger, the fear and the agony. He had choked only when the curtains closed upon her coffin. 

The illness had eaten away at her from the inside, taking her from him, and their world, little by little, piece by piece, over the course of almost a year. It had been a brief 12 months, despite the long, tormented silences and the hours passed lying beside her ever frailer body. She had fought her tormenter until the end; bravely perhaps; or fearfully. And there had been moments of cruel respite; moments that gave flickering life to hope that would be dashed days later. Cancer had been a nasty, jibing, mocking companion to their lives. But now, like her, it was gone; destroyed in its own orgy of self-destruction. And for that, at least, he could be grateful. 

The wake had been a success; family and friends united in storytelling with only the briefest undercurrent of competition; the subtlest claims to have known her most intimately, to have shared the funniest, most poignant moments. Let them compete over their memories. None of them had really known her; not really.  

His hand trembled just slightly as he poured himself another whisky and carried it back to the armchair in front of the fire. This was his private oasis of calm; an office, come den, where he could sit in private reflection. A safe place to escape television, machinery, the neighbour’s children she so enjoyed… a place to block out the noise of the world. Odd really that he should be in here tonight, when the whole house was silent, and would remain so.

Silent except for the letter that shouted at him from the mantelpiece. His eyes pulled him back to it again, but he resisted their call. Not yet. Before he read her final words to him, he would take this moment of near quiet and absorb the memories that had lain siege to his mind for so long.

He closed his eyes, forcing his mind from the letter and to the warming liquor. He poured a little into his mouth and let it rest there, savouring its smoked earthiness as the memories saturated his senses. At the wake someone had told him that it was a relief that she wouldn’t suffer anymore after such a long illness. But the swiftness of time depends on your perspective. Those twelve months had not been slow enough to make the memory of making jam together the previous Autumn distant, or the thirty years they had together seem anything more than brief. Inevitably, he traced the memories back now to a different day; a different tragedy; a different death. The day Jen’s sister had died.

That death had been very different. She’d could only have had the briefest awareness, a flicker of pain perhaps (he hoped not) before oblivion wrapped her in its soft, suffocating embrace. 

The day that knocked their world off its orbit and re-shaped their lives forever had been normal enough. The three of them had been Christmas shopping. Rebecca and Jenny had been distracted in a vintage clothing shop by a ridiculous collection of hats, descending into fits of giggles as they modelled one flower encrusted monstrosity after another. Nowadays, youngsters would recall those images through selfies. There had been no selfies then and it had taken almost six months to re-find those simple memories in the lost corners of his brain. When they were found, he’d wondered if they were real or imagined; stories created to fill the unknown spaces before the accident. 

If they’d not had coffee, if they’d not popped back to that shop before dinner only to find it was closed – if only one of a million little decisions had not been made, his car wouldn’t have been at that point, in that place, at that time. But it was.

The final moments of the journey were still lost in a haze of images and sounds that he could barely grasp. Singing to something on the radio; what, he had given up trying to recall. White light. Too much light, too fast. The steering wheel. A face filled with terror in his windscreen; whether his own reflection or the face of the other driver, he never knew. These were the odd snatches of memory, floating pieces in a virtual jigsaw, that randomly locked together to reveal moments of brutal clarity. He’d seen her beside him in those brief moments before his vision and hearing had faded into grey; seen her eyes, frozen forever in terror. Some memories could no longer be evaded. Some questions too – the millions that all began, ‘What if?’…

***

There had been three months of nothing. He’d first become aware of her touch as a vague incursion on his dreaming half-life. An unwelcome intrusion at first, it had dragged him grudgingly from the black depths until, at last, he’d unlocked his eyes and allowed in just enough light to reveal the clouded outline of her face. 

“Hello darling.” Her soft voice had penetrated the shadows. “Welcome back. It’s Jenny.” 

There had been a moment of confusion, fear and panic. Followed almost immediately, as she gripped his hand tighter, by a wave of clarity and understanding. And security. He’d felt safe, and that feeling had never changed in the thirty years they had clung together since.

His throat had been dry, his lips difficult to work, but he’d managed to whisper back, “Hello Jenny.”

It was the last time he called her that. By the next morning, she was Jen, and Jen she remained to him from that day forward. There had been a change in their lives; it was important to him that he acknowledge that, and this was his way. She never questioned it – indeed she seemed to understand and even enjoy the difference.

She’d been there every day he was in hospital; an unwavering force. As his awareness grew, he continued to be astonished by her strength and compassion. Never once did she blame him for her sister’s death; the sister she’d known since before the day they were born, the sister she’d shared everything with. It hadn’t been his fault of course, but still, her hatred, her anger would have been understandable. But there had been none – only sympathy and reassurance.  

Nevertheless, despite her resilience, he knew that the loss had killed something in her too. How could it not have? Her sister and she had shared that special mystical bond often claimed by identical twins; so different to the relationship he had with his own brother and sister; acquaintances that as an adult he’d see briefly, superficially, and neither briefly, nor superficially enough, when they descended for an afternoon, once or twice a year with their noisy offspring. When he’d first met his wife, he’d known that her sister would always be a major part of their lives. It didn’t matter; there was no jealousy between them. Indeed, he enjoyed the peace their close bond afforded him – the days they’d spend at the spa, or working on some new project, gave him precious space in which to write. 

Despite Jen’s continued, unfaltering support, his return to health had been slow; his mind had remained broken for many months. No, not exactly broken; tangled. It had taken time to unravel the strands, rearrange memories and bring order to the confusion that had wrapped his consciousness in knots. Speech at first was difficult, but gradually the knots had loosened, and the strands of understanding had grown longer.

There were physical injuries too, of course, but in a way, they had been necessary; giving his mind the time and space to recover some semblance of self, and some sense of hope for the future. All of the hope he gained, came from her. A weak, fragile hope at first, which she cultivated with patience. She brought his light – the ward had been darker when she left; the world was a darker place now.

The day he’d left hospital had been hard. She’d seemed excited; but for him it was the moment that reality crashed in on his recovery. All he could see as she wheeled him out to her car were nightmarish images of a female ghost and those of a young man, foolish, alive, now dead. A man known to him only by newspapers reports and Jen’s recollection of his funeral, which, unbelievably kindly, she’d attended without malice.

Reality’s onslaught was almost too much; he’d wanted to return to the sanctuary of his hospital bed, but he knew he could not. Instead he went through the motions of life. He visited the poor man’s grave; even lay flowers there; and cried dry tears over the urn containing their own loss. He half-heartedly performed the exercises he needed to strengthen limbs. He ate without taste. 

In those next few months, life washed over him and around him, but not through him. Periods of lethargy were interspersed with bouts of misdirected energy and anger. A lost tea strainer would be enough to throw him into a rage. A broken glass would leave him a broken, sobbing wreck, huddled on the floor.

She’d lived through those months with the same fortitude she always displayed, patiently pointing out the tea strainer in the drawer he’d been rummaging through, picking up the broken pieces of glass, and his life.

She did a good job of keeping family and friends at bay as he recovered and, as soon as he was well enough, they sold up and moved here. This had always been their safe haven; the place where they’d begun to build a new life, where life had found new patterns, new meaning. They’d brought the ashes with them and with gentle ceremony had placed them in the ground and planted a weeping willow above them. That had been thirty years ago; the tree dominated the garden now and the view from this den; a beautiful, permanent reminder of all that she had been and the life they’d lost.

Thirty years can slip by quickly if you don’t pay attention to them. And they hadn’t. Not for them the counting of days, or weeks, or even years. It had taken time, but, with careful practice, they’d learnt to live in the light of the moment, casting both the past and the future into shadow. It had been a good life together; easy and uncomplicated. 

The decisions they had taken thirty years ago had never been discussed; never explained. Like the decision to move to a new house, they had seemed to him instinctive; as though they had both known the thoughts of the other without the need for words. The move to a new home in a new part of the country was a necessary solution that gave them distance from well-intentioned friends and family, and a fresh space in which to build a new future; a future that would be both simpler and more complicated. 

***

The glass was empty. He opened his eyes and placed it on the little table beside his chair, glancing as he did to the window and the willow that lay beyond it, bathed this afternoon in a softening, dappled light. 

He sighed. He would have to read the letter. He could not ignore the curiosity pulling at his nerve ends even if, at the same time, he wondered why, in death, she felt the need to delve into the past. For he was sure that was where the contents would take him. Backwards. What could she tell him that he did not already know? Why did she feel the need to say now, that which they had deliberately left unsaid for thirty years? What purpose could her words serve?

When he’d first seen the letter, resting against the frame that contained two photographs of similar people, he’d been tempted to tear it up and throw it on the fire without reading it. But he knew that she had placed it there with a quiet determination that he should read it, and he knew that he would not, could not, in the end, deny her that. He would read her words before he destroyed them and once more consigned the past to the place where it belonged.

Slowly, heavily, he dragged himself from the remnants of his reverie and pulled himself up from the chair. Stopping only to poke at the fire and add a log, he took the letter from the mantlepiece and returned to his seat. 

The envelope was yellow – he hated yellow – and he wondered suddenly if she’d ever known that? Was that another secret between them? He sniffed; and laughed out loud as the scent of her perfume filled his nostrils. His mind raced back through the years to his first valentine’s card, given to him not very discreetly by Hayley Smith’s best friend in the playground at school when he was about ten. It had been so drenched in perfume that he had been embarrassed to hold it, for fear of contamination. Shamefully, he realised that this oddly childish, romantic touch from Jen was supposed to be reminding him of her. But it was so out of character!

He felt the first twinges of intrigue. Would the inside of the envelope reveal more secrets? Or a trick? Perhaps it contained nothing more than an old shopping list! He paused, wondering how such an anti-climax would make him feel? Relieved? Or cheated perhaps? Because surely, at the corners of his mind he’d always wondered when she’d decided to do what she did; how she’d found the strength. And why? Of course, he’d always wondered why, even as he accepted that she did it for him. 

His fingers found the small gap at the edge of the fold in the envelope and gently he lifted it, trying not to tear the paper. But it had been stuck down securely, and he wondered, suddenly when she’d prepared this last surprise. And, with a sudden jolt, how it had been placed on the mantlepiece. How could he not have seen? It could not have been her; she had been too frail. It must have been one of the nurses that had been coming to the house for the last few weeks to provide care. How long ago had she written it? How long ago did she give it to one of them? And told them precisely where to leave it when she died? 

More eagerly now, he tore open the envelope and pulled the letter out. Something fell to the floor. He bent to retrieve it and choked quietly as he realised what it was. Her wedding ring; the ring she had been wearing the day she died, kept safe for all of these years. 

Holding the ring preciously in the palm of his hand, he opened the letter. It was definitely written in Jen’s hand; there was something quite unique about the way she curled the tails on her letters. A peculiarity to the way she dotted her I’s; the dot always slightly to the left. Perhaps it was her left-handedness; she’d once told him that she’d never been allowed to use ink at school because she smudged her letters so badly, but her writing was appalling. He’d learnt over the years to decipher it; but not without his glasses. He found them now on the arm of his chair and put them on. With a final sigh, he began to read her last words to him.

“My Darling.”

He felt a tear forming in his eye and wiped it away. 

“My Darling.

A long time ago, you came into my life and thirty years ago, you came to be my life. Not conventionally, anything but, but I want you to know, my darling, that you have been my whole life since. I only hope you can forgive me after all this time for what I did and for the lie that has always been at the heart of our life together. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I have tried to tell you. But my bravery has always failed – and still does. This letter is my insurance if ultimately, I die a coward.

I know you will not want me to, but I need to take you back to that night, thirty years ago. I know you have often wondered if you could have prevented the accident. If somehow, you made a mistake. If, perhaps you could have avoided it if you’d paid more attention. And I know that the memories are foggy and incomplete. You must know, as I told you then, that there is nothing you could have done. I was there and, more importantly, I was the only one conscious when the crash happened, and after. I saw and heard everything.”

He turned the first page and noted that her words were becoming more spidery, as though written in haste. 

“I thought I had lost not just my sister, but you too and that thought was unbearable. I was in shock of course, and perhaps you will think…” - she had crossed out what words had originally spilled from her pen and replaced them -“my brain was damaged. But I knew I could not have endured the loss alone. In one crazed moment, I made a decision; a decision I could never unmake. God knows, I’ve tormented myself with it ever since. But I know that she would have wanted us to go on; to be happy and to look after each other. I wanted, I needed, to look after you. I did not want to be alone. In those rare moments when we’ve squabbled or fallen out, I’ve hated myself; wondering if you’d have squabbled in the same way with her. But, now, as my death nears, I cannot regret anything. I have had a life of contentment that on that night seemed impossible. That would have seemed evil, since the cost was her death. But my life with you has been good. And I hope I have given you a good life.

I’m sure you realise now what I am finding so hard to tell you. Even now though, I’m skirting around the edges. I think I am trying to drop clues in the hope that that way, the pain will be less. Which is pretty stupid when you think about it. But I’m terrified that you’re going to hate me. That when you realise what I am, it will not destroy what we shared.”

Her words were confusing and disturbing in a way he had not imagined they might be. What could she be telling him? Fumbling slightly, still holding the ring in his other palm, he put the first sheet gently on the table beside him and returned to her words.

“Think back to that night, darling. Try to remember. Where was your wife sitting? Of course, she was sitting where she was bound to be, right beside you, in the front of the car. Where she took the full brunt of the collision. She could not, and she did not, survive. 

That night, my sweetest darling, I claimed you as my own. It was not Rebecca that died that night; Rebecca was sitting in the back of the car. I was sat in the back of the car. Jenny, your wife, your love, died.

There, I’ve told you. It breaks my heart when I imagine the pain this will cause you. But now at the end, I cannot keep it from you any longer. 

He dropped the letter in his lap, his confusion turning to an anger he turned on himself. 

“How?” He shouted the words at nobody.

How could she have imagined he did not know? How could she have lived in torment of her kindness, believing her illusion was hers alone? How could a secret have hung between them for so long? How could she have imagined he did not know his own wife?

He had known. He had always known, from the moment of his awakening. And he had believed, for thirty years, that their silence was a silence of shared shame and understanding. He’d never questioned their choice; it had been made and there was nothing that he could or would change. Jenny had died; Jen had replaced her. And life, similarly, differently, had gone on. Together, they had endured the unendurable. And now at last the true illusion was revealed; in all that time she believed he did not know she was not his wife. 

To all intents and purposes, she was his wife; and had been for thirty years. But not Jenny. Jenny was gone. 

He grasped the letter and read the final few lines before screwing the whole lot into a ball. 

But it was not enough, He unfurled it, tore it, pulling it into tiny fragments as the tears fell and rage and despair washed through him. 

Eventually, emptied of emotion, he stopped, collapsing back into his chair. He stayed like that, huddled against the polluted memories of his life for hours, still holding the ring. At last, exhausted, he rose and gathered the littered pieces of the letter, carried them to the fire and threw them at it. Some shards were whisked up the chimney as others caught the flames. But even as he watched them burn, he knew the words would never be destroyed; that her guilt would haunt every living moment left to him.

The ring he placed beside the frame above the fire; the one that contained one picture of a young woman, his wife. And another of a much older lady; her sister Rebecca. He studied them closely now; identical, but never the same. Never the same. 

Rebecca’s final words burned into his heart:

“I have nothing else to leave you, since everything I have is rightfully hers. “Removing this was the most diabolical, stupidest, bravest, wrong thing I have ever done. And yet, I still can’t help but imagine that it is also the best thing I ever did. I have kept it safe. I hope you can keep our memory safe - and one day forgive me.”