The same girl who in twelve years quarreled with a classmate only because he told me something offensive?
The one next to me on my wedding day?
The one holding my hand when I lost my first child?
The one who spent the whole night in the hospital when Michael had heart surgery?
Did she know the whole time?
I grabbed the phone and dialed her number.
The phone was turned off.
I called again.
Again silence.
Then I went back to writing.
Michael wrote that he had ended this relationship eight months later.
According to him, Susan wanted to confess everything to me.
But Michael begged her to keep quiet.
In the letter there was one phrase from which I became even more painful:
“If we told you the truth, I would have lost you. And you would lose both your husband and your best friend at the same time.”
I was overcome by anger.
Not just because of cheating.
They both decided everything for me.
They have determined which truth I know and which one can not.
But the letter went on to get even harder.
Michael wrote that over the years, Susan has tried to disappear from my life several times.
And suddenly I remembered.
One day, she said quite unexpectedly that she wanted to move to another state.
I was crying and begging her not to leave.
“I won’t let you go. You’re my family,” I told her.
She stayed.
Now I understood why she hugged me for so long that day.
Another time, Susan almost stopped appearing at us for a few months.
I was offended and insisted that she explain what was happening.
She said she was just too busy.
Now I knew it was a lie, too.
She was trying to distance herself from me.
And I brought her back to my life every time.
At the end of the letter, Michael told the most terrible.
After he was diagnosed with cancer, he forced Susan to promise that after his death she would finally tell me the whole truth.
I didn’t know anything about it.
In the last weeks of his life, Michael often stayed with Susan alone.
I thought he was asking her to take care of me when he was gone.
Now it turned out that he asked her to stop hiding the truth from me.
I was still holding a letter in my hands when the door knocked.
I knew immediately who it was.
Susan was on the doorstep.
She’s not gone anywhere.
All this time she was sitting in a cafe opposite the hotel.
When I opened the door, she didn’t even try to smile.
– Did you read?
I didn’t want to scream.
I didn’t want to hit her.
And for some reason, it scared me even more.
I just asked:
“How many times have you sat at my desk, looked me straight in the eye and remembered what was with my husband?”
Susan’s pale.
– Every time.
When did Michael die and I was crying in your arms?
Her eyes were filled with tears.
– Every minute.
When did you tell me he loved me?
– He really loved you.
For the first time I could not stand:
– Don’t protect him.
Susan fell silent.
Then slowly sat on the chair.
“I fell in love with him,” she said quietly.
There’s a heavy silence in the room.
– And he?
Susan lowered her eyes.
I thought he loved me too. But when I told him he had to make the choice, he finished the same day. He said he would never leave you.
I don’t know if it should have comforted me a little.
But I’m only getting sicker.
Then why did you stay with me for another twelve years?
Susan was silent for a long time.
