I found the letter on a Friday afternoon, three weeks after we got married. The light in our shared study did its late autumn thing where it was slanting in just right, turning all the dust gold, making the room feel like it was hanging halfway between two different days.
I was just putting back a stack of architectural surveys I’d borrowed from his library. All those property assessments and historical records, the kind of dense stuff most people couldn’t get through but that I actually found calming. There’s something about language that means exactly what it says, nothing more or less.
The letter was tucked under the surveys.
Personal stationery. Thick, cream-colored paper. A woman’s neat handwriting, the kind you get when someone taught you handwriting, was a reflection of yourself.
