I already found you.
Go live.
Love, Thomas.
I sat on the balcony until sunset.
The following morning, I placed Thomas’s letters in the Garden House library beside Evelyn’s journals.
I did not lock them away.
They were part of the story.
I loaned the old diamond ring to the county historical society for an exhibit about letters, courtship, and communication across generations.
Claire could not believe I did not want to wear it.
“That ring belonged to seventeen-year-old Margaret,” I explained.
She looked at the simple gold wedding band on my finger.
“And that one?”
“This is the ring Thomas gave the woman I became.”
Later, Claire stood beside me on the porch.
“Would seventeen-year-old Margaret have liked seventy-one-year-old Margaret?”
I considered the question.
“She’d be shocked by my knees.”
Claire laughed.
“And otherwise?”
I looked through the open front door.
A resident sat reading near a window.
