Her eyes filled, and I looked down at our hands to give her a moment.
“People always said she looked like me,” she said.
“They did.”
“Except for her eyes.”
Rebecca’s eyes were green, clear and striking. Carol had warm brown eyes, and mine were gray.
“She always did have beautiful eyes,” I said.
Carol turned toward the window. When she spoke again, her voice had changed.
“Walt, have I been a good wife?”
I leaned closer. “How can you even ask me that?”
“Please. I need to hear it.”
“You’ve given me a wonderful life.”
Her face crumpled. I thought she was afraid of leaving it.
“Promise me you’ll do something,” she said. “Before I tell you what it is.”
“Anything.”
“Find Anna.”
My hand stopped moving.
Carol swallowed. “You’ll understand when you find her. And please… forgive me in advance.”
I stared at her. “What does Anna have to do with us?”
She shut her eyes.
“Carol, what am I supposed to forgive?”
A nurse came in to check on her. By then Carol was exhausted, struggling to stay awake, and I was asked to let her rest.
I thought we would talk again when she felt stronger.
She never did.
PART 2: The Woman Who Left
After the funeral, I kept finding things Carol had set down with every intention of picking them up again.
Her glasses on the recliner. A grocery list under a magnet. A crossword with three answers missing.
I left all of it where it was.
Rebecca called every evening from Columbus. Sometimes she talked about the boys. Sometimes we listened to each other breathe until one of us could manage a sentence.
I didn’t tell her about Anna. I could hardly explain it to myself.
Forty years earlier, I had asked Anna to marry me. We were young, and I was about to leave Millfield for a job. I had very little money, but I had already started imagining an apartment with her books on the shelves.
Her answer arrived in a letter.
She said she couldn’t leave with me. That we wanted different lives. That I shouldn’t come looking for her.
I had read it so many times that the paper softened at the folds.
My mother, Ruth, told me to respect Anna’s decision.
“You can’t make someone choose you, Walter.”
I believed her. Eventually, I believed I had recovered.
