CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE The Letter in the Drawer
A month after Andre returned home, Maya opened the drawer where she kept the letter she had written four years earlier.
The envelope had yellowed slightly at one corner.
His old Seattle address stared back at her in her own handwriting.Maya sat at the dining table and opened it.The woman who wrote the letter sounded familiar but younger.I still love you.
I don't know whether that matters anymore...
Maya read slowly.She expected to cringe.Instead, she felt tenderness for herself.That woman had been trying to become accountable without collapsing under regret.
She had not known Andre would marry a civil engineer.
She had not known he would have a daughter with serious eyebrows and a baby boy sleeping in a stroller.She had not known she would survive learning all of it.Maya took out a second sheet of paper.Under the old letter, she wrote one final paragraph.You did find someone who chose you without hesitation.
I used to think that sentence would destroy me.
It doesn't. It hurts, but it also gives me peace.
I loved you. I love the life we had. I release the life we didn't.She signed her name.Then she placed both letters into a new envelope.
No address.No stamp.She put it back in the drawer.Maybe one day she would throw it away.
Maybe she would keep it forever.Healing did not require destroying every artifact.
It required knowing the artifact was not a door.