He handed it to me.
Instead, I asked, "Why do you have this?"
Arthur leaned back.
"Because Robert asked me to keep it."
"Indefinitely?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Arthur gave me a sad smile.
"Why do you have this?"
"Because he hoped you'd visit Australia and go to that secondhand bookstore he told you about. I went there every day after I got Robert's last letter, hoping to bump into you."
I stared at him, mouth agape.
Then he told me what Robert had written in his final letters.
"I went there every day."
He'd worried about me. Not because I couldn't manage money or I couldn't live alone.
But because I never seemed to believe I was allowed to choose myself.
"He said you gave everything away," Arthur told me. "Time. Money. Energy."
I looked down.
He'd worried about me.
"Robert said you were happiest when you were planning trips you never took."
My throat tightened.
Arthur continued.
"Your husband wrote that his biggest regret wasn't dying before retirement. It was that he helped you believe life could always be postponed."
Tears ran down my face; I finally opened the envelope.
"His biggest regret."
***
Robert's letter was four pages long.
I couldn't read it all aloud without stopping, but one part broke me.
"Abigail,
If you're reading this in Australia, then you've finally done something we've both been talking about since we were young. And if I'm not there with you, don't turn the trip into a memorial for me. See things because you want to see them."
One part broke me.
The letter continued.
"Eat food I would've hated. Stay too long somewhere beautiful. Leave somewhere boring early. Spend money on yourself without explaining it to anyone. love you, but don't let loving them become the reason you never live without
