I opened the letter.
And the first sentence broke my heart.
“My love,
If you’re reading this, then you finally became curious enough to ask questions.”
I stopped.
Emily began crying beside me.
I continued.
“I know you always wondered about the bottle.
You asked me many times.
I could have explained everything.
But I knew you.
You would have turned it into another thing to worry about.
You would have counted every dose.
You would have searched every ingredient.
You would have spent your days wondering whether something was wrong.
So I made a different choice.
I made it part of our life.
Something ordinary.
Something we could share.
You never had to feel that you were taking something because you were sick.
You were simply having a drink with your husband at nine o’clock.
That was all I wanted.”
My vision blurred.
I wiped my eyes.
The letter continued.
“Do you remember our first year together?
You once told me that you didn’t want our marriage to become one of those marriages where people lived in the same house but stopped sharing their lives.
I never forgot that.
So every night at nine, I came to the kitchen.