When I opened the door, she didn’t even try to smile.
“Did you read it?”
I didn’t want to slap her.
I didn’t even want to scream.
And somehow, that was worse.
I simply asked:
“How many times did you sit at my table, look me in the eye, and remember that you had slept with my husband?”
Her face went pale.
“Every time.”
“And when he died and I cried in your arms?”
Susan’s eyes filled with tears.
“Every minute.”
“And when you told me Michael loved me?”
“He did love you.”
For the first time, I raised my voice.
“Don’t defend him.”
Susan remained silent.
Then she sat down in a chair and told me something that wasn’t in the letter.
“I fell in love with him.”
The room went completely silent.
“And him?”
Susan lowered her eyes.
“I thought he loved me too. But when I told him he had to choose, he ended it with me that same day. He said he would never leave you.”
Was that supposed to comfort me?
It didn’t.
I asked her:
“Then why did you stay in my life for another twelve years?”
For a long time, she didn’t answer.
Then she said:
“Because I had already lost my marriage. I had lost Michael. If I lost you too, I wouldn’t have anything left. And yes, it was selfish.”
For the first time, she wasn’t trying to justify herself.
Susan told me that as the years passed, the shame she felt every time she looked at me became heavier than the secret itself.
When Michael became sick, she had decided to tell me immediately.
But Michael asked her to wait.
He was afraid of spending the final months of his lsife watching our family fall apart.
And Susan agreed.s
Once again, they had made the decision for me.
I stood up and opened the hotel room door.
Susan understood.
She stood as well.
When she reached the door, she turned toward me.
“Yesterday I said it would be our last picture as friends because I knew that after today, you would never call me your friend again.”
I looked at her.
Thirty-seven years of memories passed through my mind.
Two little girls in a schoolyard.
Our first school dance.
My wedding.
The birth of my children.
My mother’s funeral.
