“Ah!” he tutted, swinging it out of reach. “Patience was never your strongest virtue, was it? It is a letter. An old one.”
“A letter?” she asked, leaning back in her chair and watching him, admiring the way his wrinkled sleepwear clung to the lean planes of his body. “How old?”
“Exactly as old as Oliver,” Freddy replied, raising his eyebrows. “I wrote it the day he debuted.”
She paused, a jolt of genuine surprise snapping behind her cheeks. “For me?” she asked, deeply curious, “or for him?”
“For you, mostly,” Freddy replied, setting it neatly on the table, just below the lantern. “The lad couldn’t read very well at the time.”
“How do you know?” she said with a sniff, knowing it would amuse him. She was determined not to make this tense, now that she knew what it was about. “My son is very gifted.”
“Touché,” he allowed, twisting his lips. He leaned forward and tapped the crinkled, dried-out parchment that made up the envelope. “Silas has had it all these years. He gave it back to me after the day we spent at the Rollright Stones, despite the fact that he wassupposedto give it to you. Silas always did like to re-saddle me with the burdens I created. Very inconsiderate.”
“Very,” she agreed, her eyes falling to the envelope, which looked very yellowed in this light. “What does it say?”
“Well, that’s the damndest thing,” Freddy replied, lifting his fingers and reaching forward to brush them over her wrist. “I do not recall. I thought about opening it, but that seemed ignoble. It’s not addressed to me.”
“Oh,” she said, unable to argue with that, meeting his eye in the low light of the lantern. “Well, shall I open it, or do you want to hedge a guess or two first?”
“Claire,” he replied affectionately.
“Yes, fine,” she said, taking a deep breath in case she needed to fuel a sigh. “Let’s find out.”
Rather than sighing, she opted to just hold the straining gulp of air in her lungs, letting it bulge in protest in all the little spaces between her ribs.
She didn’t know what she expected. Perhaps an apology so gratuitous, it would break them both? Perhaps a bit of rage that she’d kept him from her childbed? Disappointment at the way she had left him back in Bruges?
Perhaps it would have been better to just burn the thing. There was no going back and fixing it now, anyhow.
“Claire,” he said again. “Are you all right?”
She realized she’d been obvious again, sat there like an overfilled balloon, gripping the corner of the envelope.
“Oh,” she said, deflating. “Apologies.”
“I can do it,” he offered gently. “If you don’t want to.”
She flattened her lips at him and flicked the seal away with her thumbnail, sending it sailing over the lantern and past the edge of the table. “No,” she said. “I will do it.”
But she did take her time unwrapping the thing. She did allow herself that. She made a show of pressing it flat on the table, of flattening it with her fingers, of scooting her chair to the side so that Freddy could draw closer and they could read it together.
She reached out for his hand. Before she read a single word, she wanted his hand. He gave it to her without question and with a reassuring firmness and warmth, their wedding rings brushing against one another in the dark.
To Claire— and to the Child —
I am not with you today. I am nearby. I am wishing you health and happiness. I am thinking of you both. I am there in spirit, from the other side of the walls. I have always been there and always will be, even beyond oceans and cities and rooms. You may rely upon it.
One day, I will know your name, my son or daughter. One day I will see you again, my beloved wife.
One day, all of this will be nothing more than a memory and it will be a precious one, despite its imperfection.
So until I can see you both again, until I can hold you and tell you with my voice, know only that you are in my heart. You are in its every beat.
Know that you are loved. Know that I am —
Forever yours,
Freddy Hightower
