Chapter 8: The Letter
Patricia called the next morning before I'd finished my first cup of coffee.
"His attorney contacted me last night," she said.
"David is claiming he has a letter — written by you, he says, approximately four years ago — in which you allegedly admitted to emotional instability and stated that you were considering leaving the marriage.
He's suggesting it demonstrates that the marriage was already broken before his relationship with Melissa began, and that therefore the timeline of fault is different from what we've established."
I set my coffee down.
"He's going to use it to argue that he wasn't the one who ended the marriage," I said.
"That's the intent, yes.
He also wants to use it to suggest that your current emotional state may not be reliable." A pause.
"Susan, I need to ask you directly.
Is there a letter?"
I thought back four years.
The winter that Emily had been sick and David had been in Singapore for three weeks and I had sat at the kitchen table at two in the morning feeling more alone than I had ever felt inside a marriage.
"There's a letter," I said.
"I wrote it to my sister.
I never sent it.
I wrote it to get things out of my head.
I didn't know David had ever seen it."
"What does it say?"
"That I was exhausted.
That I felt invisible.
That I had thought about what my life would look like if I left." I paused.
"I didn't leave.
I stayed.
I spent the next four years trying harder."
"Did you say anything in the letter that could be characterized as a threat, an accusation, or an admission of wrongdoing on your part?"
"No.
I said I was unhappy and I was trying to decide what to do about it."
"Then it doesn't change our case." Patricia's voice was steady.
"A spouse being unhappy in a marriage is not evidence of fault.
It's evidence that the marriage had problems — which we already know, and which his conduct has already explained.
If he introduces that letter, I will introduce the Harlow Street lease, the holding company transfers, Melissa's salary, and the settlement he drafted three months ago." A brief pause.
"He will not introduce the letter."
"He's going to show it to people," I said.
"Carol said he mentioned sharing it.
He's going to try to use it to turn people against me before this goes any further."
"Probably." Patricia didn't soften it.
"That's a pressure tactic.
He wants you to feel exposed enough to settle.
Don't."
After I hung up, I called my sister, Janet, in Portland.
She answered with: "I heard.
Carol called me.
Are you all right?"
"He has the letter," I said.
"The one I wrote you four years ago.
The one I never sent."
A long silence.
"Susan.
I'm so sorry.
I never — I kept it in my desk at home when you mailed it.
I don't know how he — " She stopped.
"We visited that Christmas.
He was in my office for almost an hour while we were cooking.
I thought he was just using the computer."
He had gone through her desk.
At Christmas.
Four years ago.
"He's been holding it," I said.
"All this time.
Waiting."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing.
My lawyer says it doesn't change anything legally." I paused.
"But Janet — if he contacts you.
If he tries to use you, or show you that letter, or ask you to say anything — "
"Susan." Her voice was very firm.
"I wrote you back that night, even though you never sent the letter.
Do you remember what I said?"
I did.
She had called me instead, at two in the morning, and talked to me for an hour.
"You told me that being unhappy wasn't a character flaw," I said.
"And that I deserved to be seen."
"I meant it then.
I mean it now." A pause.
"Do you want me to come?"
"Not yet.
Soon, maybe."
"I'm here.
Whatever you need."
I sat with the phone in my lap after we hung up.
He had taken a private letter — a letter I had written to my sister in the worst hour of a very hard winter, a letter I had never even sent — and he had kept it for four years like a weapon he was saving for the right moment.
I thought about the woman who had written that letter.
Exhausted, invisible, sitting alone at two in the morning, trying to find words for something she didn't yet know how to say.
She had stayed.
She had tried harder.
She had planned a wedding and fastened pearl buttons and made a promise to her daughter and kept it, even when keeping it meant reaching for a chair that had been chosen for her like a consolation prize.
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
*This is Melissa.
I know you have no reason to listen to me.
But I think there are things you don't know about David that you should.
I'm not asking for anything.
I just think you deserve to know the truth.
Please call me.*
I read it three times.
Then I forwarded it to Patricia and typed back: *My lawyer will be in touch.*
But my hand hovered over the phone for a long moment before I put it down.
May you like
Because whatever Melissa knew — whatever she had seen from inside that relationship that I had only ever seen from outside it — I had the feeling it was worse than the letter.
And I had the feeling she was right that I deserved to know.
