Beneath the photos were letters, dozens of them, bound together with twine. I picked up the top letter and saw handwriting that wasn’t Harold’s. It was flowing, feminine, elegant.
My dearest Harold, it began. Not a day passes that I don’t think of you. No matter how far life pulls us apart, I cannot stop loving you.
Who was this woman? Slowly, methodically, I unpacked the rest. A silver locket with her picture inside.
A man’s wristwatch is not Harold’s style at all. A pair of train tickets dated more than fifty years ago. More letters pages filled with longing, love, heartbreak.
Hours passed as rain drummed against the attic roof. I sat there, surrounded by pieces of a past I never knew existed, feeling my marriage rearrange itself in my mind like a puzzle suddenly revealing a new picture. That night, sleep eluded me.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling, my thoughts circling the same questions again and again. Had Harold loved this woman more than me? Had I been a replacement for a lost love he could never truly let go of?
Every memory wavered under the weight of doubt. When he smiled at me during dinner, where had his thoughts drifted? When he’d hold my hand during one of our evening walks, was he remembering her instead?
In the days that followed, I read every letter, every line, until the story began to take shape. Her name was Evelyn. She and Harold had met one summer while he worked a seasonal job in her town.
They had fallen into a heady, youthful romance, writing letters when work or distance kept them apart. But then Harold had been drafted. Their correspondence grew more difficult.
Evelyn wrote of her troubles, disapproving parents, unstable finances, and eventually…Continue reading…
