My 8-year-old son’s metal detector suddenly screamed near our family’s lake house—but when my husband saw where he was digging,…
“You were preparing our son for the end of our marriage while I was still asking you what you wanted for dinner.”
“It wasn’t like that! I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I didn’t know how to talk to you. So I was preparing myself, and Remy, if he ever needed it.”
“You could have started before you bought envelopes and buried them.”
His jaw tightened. “You think I didn’t try?”
That stopped me. I wanted to answer immediately. Instead, I looked at the box. “I can’t do this right now. If I stay out here, I’m going to say something just to hurt you, and that’s not fair.”
I carried the box inside.
The Letter From Eight Months Ago
An hour later, Remy was on the back steps sorting bottle caps into categories only he understood. I sat at the table with the box, determined to get the whole story, not just Tripp’s version. I sorted the envelopes by date. They stretched from two years back, forward through nearly two years of months, and my breathing eased a little.
Then I found one near the bottom. Eight months ago.
Our worst period had ended long before that. Or so I’d believed.
“Tripp.”
He appeared in the doorway. I held up the envelope. “When were you planning to mention this?”
His expression changed. “It doesn’t mean what you think.”
“Then don’t tell me what I think. Tell me what it means.”
He sat across from me. “I wasn’t planning to leave.”
“Eight months ago? Are you sure?”
“No.” He looked down. “It became something I did when I couldn’t say things. Whenever we came back here, I’d add another one.”
“So every time something scared you, you wrote to some future version of our son instead of talking to your wife?”
“He wasn’t supposed to read them at eight. They were for later.”
“That’s the part you’re correcting?”
He covered his face, then lowered his hands. “Do you know what happens when I tell you something’s wrong?”
“I listen.”
“No. You try to solve everything. If I say money worries me, you make a plan before I finish. If work is getting to me, you rearrange the weekend. If I say we’re disconnected, you’re already fixing the next date night.”
“That’s called trying, Tripp.”
“It is. But sometimes I don’t need a solution before I’ve even said what hurts.”
I wanted to dismiss it, but I could hear myself doing exactly that. I looked down at the letters. “Maybe I made it hard to sit in the mess.”
His eyes lifted.
“But you still buried it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
Please click the Continue Reading button below to keep reading.
Comments (0)