“He would have loved this,” Daniel said.
“He would have complained about the wind,” I said. “And then he would have loved it.”
I took something out of my coat pocket.
It was Robert’s letter. The one from the bedside drawer. I’d brought it with me.
I read the last part out loud, there on the cliff, with the wind snatching at the paper.
She spent fifty years putting herself last. Let her go first for a while.
Daniel put his arm around me.
People ask me, sometimes, if I’m angry at Robert.
I tell them the truth. Yes. A little. I always will be.
He spent fourteen years and two hundred thousand dollars protecting me from something without ever asking me what I wanted. He decided I couldn’t handle the truth. He decided I was too frightened to choose for myself.
In a way, he was right. I was frightened. I’d been frightened since 1979.
