Chapter 5: Eleven Years of Sunday Dinners
His name was Garrett.
He was four years older than me, lived forty minutes away, and had been at our wedding.
He had helped me carry Elena's casket.
He had sat at my kitchen table every other Sunday for the past two years, eating dinner with me and the kids, asking how we were all holding up.
I sat in the attic for a long time.
Maya sat beside me on an old trunk, close enough that her shoulder touched mine.
She didn't say anything.
She just stayed.
Eventually I picked up the bundle of letters and pulled the rubber band off.
The envelopes were in order by date.
The earliest was postmarked eleven years ago — the year Elena and I first met.
The most recent was dated eight months before she went into the hospital.
I didn't read them all.
I read the first one and the last one.
The first one began: *Elena, I know you've made your choice and I'm not going to fight it.
But I need you to know that what we had was real to me.*
The last one began: *I heard you're sick.
I'm not going to pretend I don't still think about you.
I never stopped.*
I folded both letters and put them back.
"How much do you know?" I asked Maya.
"Just what Mom told me.
That his name was Daniel." She paused.
"She never said it was Uncle Garrett."
"She used a different name."
Maya was quiet for a moment.
"Did they — were they together?
Before you?"
"It looks that way." I set the bundle down.
"For a while, at least."
"And he never told you."
"No."
"And she never told you."
"No."
I stood up.
My knees ached from crouching on the attic floor.
"Did you know they knew each other before you introduced them?" Maya asked.
That was the question I hadn't let myself ask yet.
I thought about the first time I brought Elena to a family dinner.
Garrett had been there.
He had shaken her hand and said it was nice to meet her.
Elena had smiled and said the same.
Neither of them had looked at the other for more than a second.
I had thought nothing of it.
"No," I said.
"I didn't know."
I carried the green box downstairs.
I set it on the kitchen table.
I poured a second cup of coffee I didn't drink.
Then I picked up my phone and called Garrett.
He answered on the second ring, easy and warm the way he always was.
"Hey.
What's up?"
"I need you to come over," I said.
"Today."
A short pause.
"Everything okay?"
"No," I said.
"It's not.
Come over, Garrett.
I found the green box."
May you like
The line went completely silent.
He didn't ask what green box.
