Claire was six years old when she found the letter.
We were cleaning out the attic, something I did every spring, sorting through old boxes and deciding what to keep and what to throw away. Claire was supposed to be helping, but she kept getting distracted by the photographs and the old dresses and the strange objects that had accumulated over the years.
"What's this?" she asked, holding up a cream-colored envelope.
I took it from her. It was addressed to me, in Eleanor's handwriting. It was postmarked before she died.
The note inside was short.
I was wrong about many things, it said. But I was right about one. You love him. And that, in the end, is enough.
I read it twice. Then I put it in my pocket and went downstairs to make dinner.
That night, I told Julian about the letter.
He
