But I had never imagined the quiet man across the street had carried it into his seventies.
Walter continued.
“Then I got married.”
I nodded slowly.
“Had boys.”
“Yes.”
“My wife knew about Thomas.”
“She knew about the letter?”
“Yes.”
I felt another flash of anger.
“She told me to give it to you.”
“Smart woman.”
“She was.”
Walter smiled painfully.
“But every year that passed made it worse.”
“So instead of doing it late, you did nothing.”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the window.
“Then your house went up for sale across from mine.”
“My house?”
“The one I bought.”
I stared.
“You moved here because of me?”
“Because of the promise.”
“Walter.”
“I told myself if I lived close enough, eventually I’d find the courage.”Packaging
“And?”
He looked at the copper wire.
“Every time I saw that ring, I couldn’t do it.”
I followed his eyes.
“This?”
“You still wore it.”
“Yes.”
“After thirty years.”
“Yes.”
“Forty.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you’d built a life around remembering him.”
“I built a life.”
“I know.”
Walter lowered his head.
“But I was afraid that handing you that letter would tear open something you’d learned to carry.”
“That should have been my decision.”
“I know.”
“And you still haven’t answered one thing.”
He looked up.
“Why today?”
Walter’s face changed.
I knew before he said it that the answer was bad.
“My doctor says I have pancreatic cancer.”
I stared at him.
“He thinks I have a few months.”
The anger inside me suddenly collided with something else.
Fear.
Pity.
Grief for a man I barely knew and apparently had known for decades without realizing it.
Walter continued.
“I went to the jeweler yesterday.”
His eyes moved toward the gold ring.Chemistry
“I finally bought it.”
“Fifty-five years late.”
“Yes.”
“And then you left it in my mailbox.”
“I thought I might die before I found enough courage to knock.”
I looked at the envelope.
Walter whispered:
“I couldn’t take Thomas’s promise into the ground with me.”
I sat down.
For several minutes, neither of us moved.
Then I opened the letter.
The paper was fragile.
Soft from years of being folded and unfolded.
The first line destroyed me.
If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t make it back.
I stopped.
Walter stared at the floor.
I tried again.
Thomas wrote that he loved me.
