Chapter 3: What Paul Knew
I stared at him.
The chapel was still full of people.
Someone was playing organ music softly in the corner.
A woman near the front was crying into a handkerchief.
None of it felt real.
"Paul." My voice came out lower than I expected.
"What do you know about that note?"
He glanced past my shoulder.
Checking who was close.
"Not here," he said.
"Yes.
Here." I took one step toward him.
"Right now."
He pressed his lips together.
His jaw moved like he was chewing something he couldn't swallow.
"There's a room off the side hallway," he said finally.
"The one the funeral director used this morning.
It'll be empty."
I followed him without another word.
The room was small.
Two chairs, a round table, a box of tissues on the windowsill.
Paul closed the door behind us.
He didn't sit.
Neither did I.
"How long?" I said.
"Ellen—"
"How long, Paul?"
He looked at the floor.
"I found out eight months ago."
Eight months.
Greg had still been alive eight months ago.
We had still been having dinner together, watching television together, sleeping in the same bed.
"Who is she?" I said.
"Her name is Diane." He finally looked up.
"She and Greg — it wasn't what you're thinking.
I mean, it wasn't — it didn't start the way you think."
"Then tell me how it started."
He pulled out a chair and sat down heavily, like something inside him had given way.
"They grew up together," he said.
"Before you.
Before any of us.
She was his first — his very first relationship, when they were teenagers.
They lost touch.
Then about four years ago, she reached out.
Her husband had passed.
She was alone.
She just wanted to reconnect with an old friend."
"And Greg didn't tell me."
"He was going to.
That's what he said.
He kept saying he was going to tell you, but then time passed and it got harder and—"
"Four years, Paul."
He stopped.
"Four years he was in contact with this woman and he never once mentioned her name to me."
"It wasn't physical," Paul said quickly.
"I need you to believe that.
I asked him directly.
He swore to me.
They wrote letters.
Actual paper letters.
He said talking to her helped him — she was going through grief, he understood grief, it was just—"
"Letters." I sat down.
The chair felt very hard.
"He was writing her letters."
"Yes."
"And she put one in his casket."
Paul's face crumpled.
"I didn't know she was going to do that.
I didn't know she'd be here today.
When I saw her standing there, I—" He stopped.
Pressed his hand over his mouth for a moment.
"I should have warned you.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know what to do."
I looked at the tissue box on the windowsill.
I didn't reach for it.
"What was the promise?" I said.
"The note said he kept his promise.
What promise?"
Paul was quiet for a long moment.
"I don't know," he said.
But something in the way he said it — too careful, too flat — told me that wasn't entirely true.
"Paul."
"Ellen, I genuinely don't know the exact words.
I just know there was something he felt he owed her.
Something from a long time ago." He looked at me.
"I think you need to talk to Diane."
"I don't even know her last name."
He reached into his jacket pocket and set a folded piece of paper on the table between us.
I looked at it.
Then I looked at him.
"You came prepared," I said.
He didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
I picked up the paper.
I didn't open it yet.
"Is there anything else you haven't told me?" I said.
Paul looked at his hands.
The silence stretched long enough that the organ music from the chapel filtered faintly through the wall.
"There's one more thing," he said.
"But I need you to hear it sitting down."
I was already sitting.
I gripped the edge of the table.
"Greg changed his will," Paul said.
"Six months ago.
I only know because he told me.
He said he wanted to make sure something was taken care of.
He didn't tell me what.
But Ellen — he met with his lawyer twice in the last year.
Twice that I know of."
May you like
The organ music stopped.
The room felt very small.
