Thomas was standing in front of a house he had just bought, smiling at a camera, in a photograph addressed to a woman he hadn’t seen in a year and didn’t know if he’d ever see again.
I set the photograph down carefully.
“He was so certain,” I said.
Not quite to Daniel.
Not quite to myself.
“That’s what I can’t—” Daniel stopped.
He pressed his lips together.
When he spoke again his voice was controlled but the effort was visible.
“That’s what I can’t make sense of.
He was the most practical man I knew.
He ran a business for forty years.
He made careful decisions.
And yet he held onto a house for fifty-four years on the chance that a woman he hadn’t spoken to might come back.”
“I know.”
“That’s not practical.”
“No,” I agreed.
“It isn’t.”
Daniel stood abruptly and walked to the window.
His back was to me.
“I’m not angry at you,” he said.
His voice was lower now.
“I want to be.
It would be easier.
But I’m not.” A pause.
“I’m angry that he never told me.
That I spent my whole life with him and there was this — entire part of him that I never knew existed.”
“He loved you,” I said.
“Everything you’ve told me makes that clear.”
“I know he loved me.” He turned around.
His eyes were bright but steady.
