Read Chapter 12: THE READING

Evelyn did not take the letters home.

“Can I read them here?” she asked.

Maeve looked around Bellwether. “Of course.”

So Evelyn sat in Nora’s chair beside the back window and began.

Maeve reopened the shop but kept customers away from the rear. She moved quietly, pretending not to watch.

Evelyn read for six hours.

Sometimes she smiled. Once she laughed aloud. Several times she stopped with her hand over her mouth. She took breaks to walk to the door and back. She drank three cups of tea after initially refusing one.

At four, she asked, “Was there one from 1997?”

Maeve found it.

Evelyn read the hospital passage and swore softly.

“What?”

“I asked Eileen to call him.”

Maeve stared.

“What?”

“Before the operation. I was frightened. Liam was in England with Anna—family emergency. I asked Eileen to tell Tom I wanted to see him.”

“He stood outside the hospital for forty minutes.”

Evelyn looked stricken. “She never called?”

“Maybe she did.”

Maeve found Eileen’s number.

Evelyn hesitated, then nodded.

Eileen answered on the fourth ring.

When Maeve explained, silence followed.

Then Eileen said, “I called him.”

Evelyn leaned toward the phone.

“What did you say?”

“I said you were going into hospital and you were asking after him.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell him I wanted him there?”

Eileen’s voice cracked. “Because Liam rang me the same afternoon. He was frantic trying to get a flight home. I thought—God forgive me—I thought seeing Tom would blow your life apart when you were ill. So I softened it.”

Evelyn went very still.

“You decided for me.”

“Yes.”

“You all decided for me.”

Eileen did not defend herself.

“I’m sorry.”

Evelyn ended the call.

For several minutes, she stared at the letter.

Maeve expected rage.

Instead Evelyn said, “We were all so afraid of consequences that we became consequences.”

Maeve sat opposite her.

By closing time, Evelyn reached the final letter.

She read it twice.

Dear E,

The doctor says I should put my affairs in order. This phrase makes me laugh because my affairs have never been in any kind of order.

I have written to you for so long that I no longer know whether these letters are addressed to the woman you are or the life I did not live. That is unfair to you. It may also be unfair to the life I did live, which contained good work, good friends, ordinary mornings, and more happiness than a tragic man is supposed to admit.

I loved you. I love you. Both sentences are true, and neither obliges you to anything.

I used to believe the noblest thing I could do was leave you alone. Later I suspected it was simply the safest thing I could do for myself. By then safety had become a habit.

If there is another life, I hope I am less careful in it.

T.

Evelyn folded the paper.

“He understood in the end.”

“Yes.”

“Too late.”

“Yes.”

“But he understood.”

Maeve nodded.

Evelyn gathered the letters and retied the green ribbon.

At the door, she paused.

“Nora told me once that grief makes misers of us. We start rationing love because we’ve learned it can disappear.”

Maeve looked at her.

“She was talking about you,” Evelyn said.

“Of course she was.”

“She worried.”

“She had an odd way of showing it.”

“So did Tom.”

The comparison landed harder than Maeve wanted.

Evelyn touched the tin under her arm.

“I am taking these. I may burn them tomorrow.”

“They’re yours.”

“Or I may give them to Anna when I’m ready.”

“That’s yours too.”

Evelyn smiled.

Then she left.

Maeve locked the door and stood in the suddenly ordinary shop.

The mystery was over.

Nothing exploded. No lost lovers reunited. No grand revelation repaired the dead.

Only a woman walked away carrying letters that had waited twenty-eight years to become hers.

Maeve took out her phone.

She opened Julian’s contact.

Her thumb hovered over CALL.

Then she remembered: Don’t bother.

Her own words.

Safety had become a habit.

Maeve pressed the button.