I left the hospital before either of them could stop me.
Jeremy followed as far as the elevator.
“Jill.”
I pressed the call button.
“Don’t.”
“Please.”
“I said don’t.”
The elevator arrived with a soft chime.
He reached for my arm but stopped before touching me.
“I can explain the letters.”
I stepped inside.
“I’m sure you can.”
The doors began closing.
“Jill, I was twenty.”
“So was I.”
The doors shut between us.
I drove home without remembering most of the highway. Nashville blurred into interchanges, brake lights, and autumn sky. The county fair photograph lay face down on the passenger seat.
Thirty-seven letters.
That number took on a physical shape in my mind.
Not one drunken apology.
Not one goodbye.
Thirty-seven deliberate decisions. Thirty-seven envelopes addressed. Thirty-seven stamps licked. Thirty-seven moments when Jeremy sat somewhere away from me and chose to write to the woman he had supposedly left behind.
At home, I locked the door though Jeremy had a key.
Then I laughed bitterly at myself and turned the deadbolt back.
There was no point pretending a lock could protect a life whose walls were already open.
I went to our bedroom.
The room looked unchanged.
His boots beside the dresser.
My robe behind the door.
A paperback upside down on his nightstand.
Wedding photograph above the chest.
I stared at that photograph for a long time.
We looked absurdly young.
Jeremy’s hair was longer then. Mine was pinned up with tiny white flowers. I remembered believing his nervous hands meant devotion.
Now I wondered whether he had been thinking of Lacey.
I took the photograph down.
Dust outlined the frame.
Underneath, the wall was a brighter shade of cream.
That offended me somehow.
I carried it to the kitchen and laid it face down beside the sink.
Jeremy came home after dark.
I knew from the sound of his truck exactly how long it took him to climb the porch steps.
He opened the door carefully.
I sat at the table.
The courthouse envelope, the will, the fair photograph, and Vanderbilt parking stub were arranged in front of me.
He looked at them.
Then at me.
“Sit.”
He did.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
The refrigerator hummed.
A dog barked two houses away.
Finally I said, “Start with the letters.”
Jeremy rubbed both hands over his face.
“I wrote them the year after Lacey left.”
“She said after she moved.”
“Yes.”
“While you were with me.”
“Yes.”
“While we were planning our wedding?”
His jaw tightened.
“Some.”
The word hit harder than I expected.
“Some.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“About seven months.”
“Seven months after she left?”
“Yes.”
“Or seven months after you married me?”
“Before.”
I stared at him.
“When did you stop?”
“About six weeks before our wedding.”
“Why?”
“She stopped answering.”
I almost smiled.
“You were waiting for answers.”
“At first.”
“So while I was choosing flowers and ordering invitations, you were writing your ex-girlfriend.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No, Jeremy. You know what happened.”
He lowered his eyes.
“What did the letters say?”
“Different things.”
I slammed my palm against the table.
He flinched.
“I am finished accepting phrases that mean nothing.”
“I told her I was sorry.”
“What else?”
“I asked how she was.”
“What else?”
“I asked about the pregnancy.”
The room froze.
“How often?”
“A lot.”
“And after the miscarriage?”
“I didn’t know yet.”
“When did you find out?”
“Mom told me.”
“When?”
“About four months before we married.”
I stood so abruptly my chair tipped backward.
“You knew four months before we married that Lacey had lost your baby.”
“Yes.”
“And you did not tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“All of it.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I was ashamed I still cared!”
His voice cracked through the kitchen.
We stared at each other.
There it was.
Not softened.
Not protected.
I sat down slowly.
Jeremy breathed hard.
“I cared about her,” he said. “I had left her. She was pregnant. Then the baby died. I was building a life with you, and every time I felt happy, some part of me thought I had no right to be.”
“So you wrote to her.”
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
He took too long.
“Yes.”
The word entered the house and changed its air.
I looked away.
“And me?”
“Yes.”
“You loved both of us.”
“For a while.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
“Did you ever consider leaving me?”
“Yes.”
Another clean cut.
“When?”
“Before the wedding.”
“How close?”
He swallowed.
“One night I drove halfway to Nashville.”
I stared.
“When?”
“February.”
I knew exactly which February.
The month my father paid the deposit on our reception hall.
“Why did you turn around?”
Jeremy’s eyes filled.
“Because I realized I was trying to repair one betrayal by committing another.”
I laughed once, sharply.
“So you came home and married me instead.”
“Yes.”
“And buried everything.”
“I thought I had.”
The cruelty of that sentence came from its truth.
“You thought.”
“I was wrong.”
I looked at his hands.
Those hands had built our porch, fixed my mother’s fence, held mine through my father’s funeral.
They had also written thirty-seven letters to another woman.
“Did you tell Lacey to come home?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The answer made me stand again.
This time I walked to the sink because I could not sit across from him.
Outside, darkness had settled over the yard.
My reflection floated in the glass.
“So what exactly did I marry?”
“Jill.”
“A man waiting to see if somebody else answered?”
“No.”
“But she did answer.”
“Not after I found out about the miscarriage.”
“What did she say before?”
“That she hated me.”
“Fair.”
“That she missed me.”
My stomach tightened.
“What else?”
“That she wished none of it had happened.”
“Did she ask you to leave me?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“She never did?”
“Not once.”
I turned.
“Then why were you driving to Nashville?”
“Because I wanted to see her.”
“You wanted to choose.”
“Yes.”
The honesty had become brutal now.
Maybe he understood there was nothing left to preserve.
“Did you?”
“I did.”
“Who?”
He looked at me.
“You.”
I shook my head.
“Don’t.”
“It’s true.”
“You don’t get to use our wedding as evidence.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you using?”
“Twenty-two years.”
I felt tears arrive and hated them.
“Twenty-two years built on missing information.”
“No.”
“You decided what I could handle.”
“Yes.”
“You decided what I deserved to know.”
“Yes.”
“You decided when your past was allowed into our marriage.”
“Yes.”
“And then when Lacey got sick, you decided all over again.”
His face crumpled.
“Yes.”
That quiet confession hurt more than shouting could have.
I sat down.
“How did you find her at Vanderbilt?”
“I was repairing an office suite.”
“You said that part was chance.”
“It was.”
“And after you saw her?”
“I followed her.”
“What?”
“She left the café. I followed her down the hall.”
“Why?”
“Because she looked sick.”
He described recognizing Lacey by her eyes before he recognized anything else. She was thinner, wearing a knit cap despite the warm weather. She tried to avoid him. He insisted on talking.
“She told me about the cancer that day.”
“And you came home.”
“Yes.”
“Did you almost tell me?”
“Every day for a month.”
I closed my eyes.
That somehow made it worse.
“One sentence, Jeremy.”
“I know.”
“You needed one sentence.”
“I know.”
“I saw Lacey today. She has cancer.”
“I know.”
“Then everything after that could have been different.”
“Yes.”
He started crying then.
Not dramatically.
His shoulders simply folded.
“I was afraid you would think I had never chosen you.”
I stared at him.
“And now what do you think I believe?”
He had no answer.
A long silence passed.
Finally I asked, “Why did you marry her?”
“I told you.”
“You told me guilt.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t enough.”
He wiped his face.
“She asked me after the insurance company refused to recognize me as family for a treatment appeal. Her policy was a mess. Bills were piling up. She was terrified.”
“And you said yes.”
“Not immediately.”
“How long did you think about it?”
“Three weeks.”
“Did you speak to a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after?”
“Before.”
My breath stopped.
“So this was planned.”
“Yes.”
Not impulsive.
Not desperate in one terrible afternoon.
Planned.
“Did the lawyer tell you it was illegal?”
“He told me our first marriage made a second marriage invalid and potentially created criminal problems if I knowingly filed.”
“Yet you did it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Jeremy stared at the tabletop.
“Because Lacey had been told treatment might give her another year. Without coverage, she thought she wouldn’t get it.”
“So you committed fraud.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
I had not expected him to admit it so plainly.
“Does anyone know?”
“Her lawyer knows pieces. The hospital doesn’t know everything.”
“David?”
“No.”
“Then what happens if someone finds out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Prison?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fines?”
“Yes.”
“Insurance fraud charges?”
“Possibly.”
I stood still.
For three years Jeremy had not merely lied about another relationship.
He had put our finances, property, insurance, and perhaps his freedom at risk.
“You risked our house.”
“I tried not to.”
“That is not the same as not risking it.”
“I know.”
“What else don’t I know?”
He looked at me.
“There’s money missing.”
The room went quiet again.
“How much?”
“About sixty-two thousand dollars.”
I felt cold.
“From where?”
“Our savings.”
I stared at him.
“We do not have sixty-two thousand dollars missing.”
“We did.”
My mind raced through statements, accounts, retirement balances.
Then I understood.
“The account from your mother.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn had left Jeremy money when she died. I had never treated it as mine, though he insisted it was household savings.
“You spent it on Lacey.”
“Treatment, rent, travel, some debt.”
“All of it?”
“Most.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“And you thought because it came from Evelyn I didn’t need to know.”
“Yes.”
“Your mother knew about the baby.”
He looked up sharply.
“Yes.”
“Did that have anything to do with why you spent her money?”
His silence answered.
I closed my eyes.
Another debt.
Another secret obligation passed down through generations like an inheritance.
Jeremy said, “Mom carried guilt too.”
“So everybody was paying Lacey except me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No?”
“You didn’t owe her.”
I stared at him.
“For twenty-two years I thought I did.”
He went still.
“You let me think I was the entire reason her life broke apart.”
“I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“You never asked.”
He lowered his head.
My phone buzzed on the table.
Lacey.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw the message.
Jeremy didn’t tell you everything about the money.
I turned the screen toward him.
His face changed.
“What does she mean?”
He stared at the message.
I waited.
“Jeremy.”
He stood.
“Some of the money came back.”
“How?”
“Lacey sold something.”
“What?”
“Her father’s property.”
“And?”
“She gave me a cashier’s check.”
“For how much?”
“Forty thousand.”
“Where is it?”
He looked toward the hallway.
My pulse began pounding.
“Where?”
“In the safe.”
“What safe?”
He did not answer.
We had lived in this house for twenty-two years.
I knew every cabinet, every closet, every squeaking floorboard.
Or thought I did.
Jeremy walked into the bedroom.
I followed.
He moved the dresser six inches away from the wall.
Behind it was a square metal panel I had never seen.
My breath stopped.
He crouched and entered a code.
The safe opened.
Inside were documents, cash, the cashier’s check, and a thick stack of envelopes bound with a faded blue ribbon.
The letters.
Thirty-seven of them.
Not in Nashville.
Here.
In our bedroom.
Jeremy looked up at me.
“Lacey gave them back six months ago.”
I stared at the stack.
“So you’ve had them in this house.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she told me to destroy them.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked at the letters.
Then at me.
“Because one of them was never sent.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Unsent Letter Hidden Behind Our Bedroom Wall Contained the Choice Jeremy Had Been Too Afraid to Admit for Twenty-Two Years
Twenty-Two Years After I Won the Man I Wanted, One Ordinary Tuesday Made Our Marriage Feel Suddenly Unfamiliar
Part 6 of 15
